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LIFE ETERNAL 



"He that loveth his life shall lose it, a?id he that hateth 
his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal" — John 
xii. 25. 



by ^/ 
THEODORE F. WRIGHT. 



V 



BOSTON: 
MASSACHUSETTS NEW-CHURCH UNION, 

169 Tremont Street. 
1885. 









off 



HrA«H22 



Copyright, 

By Theodore F. Wright, 

1885. 



Mass. New-Church Union Press, 169 Tremont Street, Boston. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Beyond the Grave . ' 7 

Man a Spirit . . . : 21 

Death 37 

The Lord's Example in Death . . . . 55 

Resurrection 67 

The Lord's Resurrection 82 

Reunion on High . 96 

The Bible in Heaven in 

The Heavenward Call 125 

The Heavenly Preparation 139 

In Affliction 154 

After Affliction 169 



PREFACE. 

TN complying with a wish, expressed both within 
and without the society of the New Church, 
which he serves, that certain discourses, prepared 
at various times for the purpose of giving the teach- 
ings of the Holy Word and of fair reasoning on the 
subject of the future life, might be placed within 
the reach of those who have known bereavement 
or who may for other reasons be led to take near 
views of death, the author would say that these 
sermons are neither so closely connected as to form 
an argument, nor so nicely discriminated as to 
avoid repetition, and that they are sent forth only 
in the hope that some hearts may find therein 
"comfortable words" ; may be led to doubt that 

" Death 

\ 

Grinned horrible a ghastly smile, to hear 
His famine should be filled ; " 



vi PREFACE. 

and to believe that 

" Death is another life. We bow our heads 
At going out, we think, and enter straight 
Another golden chamber of the king's, 
Larger than this we leave, and lovelier." 



Bridgewater, Mass., 
Feb., 1885. 



BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

"As the angels of God in heaven" — Matt. xxii. 30. 

r § ^HERE are three ways of looking at the life 
hereafter, and it is proposed to consider them 
a little in order to see on what basis rests the doc- 
trine of the New Church. How to prepare for the 
future life is obviously a question of the greatest 
importance, but it is equally evident that according 
to the idea we have of that other life will be our 
preparation. Moreover, it must be plain that if all 
men could be made to see clearly the nature of 
this after life, a new and most powerful motive 
would be added to those which lead them to con- 
tend with evil and do what is right. If the idea 
of the future existence be vague, the preparation 
must be made in doubt. If the thought be that 
the future life is itself a matter of doubt, then no 
direct preparation whatever can be made for it. 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



If its reality and the nature of its existence be 
well known, then, like a mariner who sees before 
him the harbor for which he steers, one may go 
on, not only hopefully, but securely. 

Of these three ideas it may be said that the first 
was formerly held generally, and is now widely 
held in the Christian Church, but with a gradual 
decrease of confidence, the current of popular opin- 
ion setting from it rather than towards it. A few 
words from the Westminster Cafechism brings 
this view to mind. " The bodies of men after 
death return to dust and corruption. The souls of 
the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, 
are received into the highest heaven, where they 
behold the face of God in light and glory. But 
the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where 
they remain in torments and utter darkness. At 
the last day the dead shall be raised up, with the 
self-same bodies, and none others, which shall be 
united to their souls forever." 

It will be seen that under this view men obtain 
only the boon of an unorganized existence from 



BEYOND THE GRAVE. 



the time of death to the last day, when they must 
return to their bodies. How small the number in 
light must be comparatively, will be seen by what 
the "Shorter Catechism" says of the heathen; 
"They who, having never heard the Gospel, know 
not Christ Jesus, and believe not in him, cannot be 
saved, be they ever so diligent to frame their lives 
according to the light of nature, or the law of the 
religion they profess." 

It is not necessary to put this statement on trial, 
and it is not unkind to say that it is not a good 
view to take. It is not the Lord's truth ; it is not 
in the words of Scripture, and cannot be put into 
them ; it is some man's writing, and he was, evi- 
dently, a very fallible man. This view would pro- 
mote skepticism with some, and would make others 
cower in the sight of God, when they should be 
rejoicing and working. Now here is no helpful 
light as to what men should do in preparation for 
the hereafter. If not predestined, nothing can 
help them ; if predestined, nothing can help their 
having the full glories of the hereafter ; but those 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



glories are to be in the " self-same body and none 
other. " This is not an ennobling view, but its 
failings have been sufficiently indicated. It is 
clear that the motive to good in it is nothing as 
regards the great body of mankind who have not 
the Gospel, and but little more as regards those 
who are either doomed to everlasting torture, or to 
a return to the body. 

This view, arising from a misunderstanding of the 
Scriptures, has given rise, as would be expected, 
to an opposite one. A very large class of people 
in Christendom doubt this view because it is not 
reasonable, and draw away from the Scriptures, 
which they are told give authority to this view, and 
seek to hold a virtuous course in life without the 
help of a faith in the hereafter. " George Eliot" 
was a leader in this party. She had no convic- 
tion of the hereafter, and bat little respect for 
anything connected with the Christian Church, 
which seemed to her to be in error. She formed 
her life here according to what she believed to be 
reasonable, and lived and died unsustained by any 



BEYOND THE GRAVE. 



faith in heavenly life. Another agnostic, of a 
lighter mental caliber, died not long ago, having 
given direction that his tomb should bear the in- 
scription ; " I was not, I lived, I loved, I am not." 
Out of nothingness he believed he came, to noth- 
ingness he was going; a hopeless, helpless view, 
indeed. This view also is man-made. It, too, is 
unscriptural, unreasonable. Received only as a 
dire necessity, it gives no strength to the living, 
no comfort to the dying. It is enough to say of it, 
in its cold negations, " My heart and my flesh cry 
out for the living God." 

As to the third view, let it be said that when it 
came from the lips of the Lord Jesus, the situa- 
tion of the faiths was much as it is now. There 
were two opinions standing over against each other. 
Pharisees on one side, and Sadducees on the other, 
held the same attitude with Calvinists and agnos- 
tics to-day. The Pharisee believed in predestina- 
tion and election, namely, of his people to heaven, 
and of all others to hell. He claimed that this was 
scriptural, and quoted passages, the meaning of 



12 LIFE ETERNAL. 



which he misunderstood. His heaven was a nar- 
row paradise, namely, the Holy Land transformed ; 
his hell was a burning Tophet. The Sadducean 
idea was negative. It denied that the Scriptures 
taught what the Pharisees believed. It stopped 
there, not being able to build a better faith, just as 
modern Sudduceeism stops. The third view then 
is the third view now. The third view then was 
from a better interpretation of the Scriptures ; it is 
so now ; and it is the same view brought back after 
being lost, and made bright with the effulgence of 
the new age of Christianity. 

What is this view ? When the Lord went up 
into the mountain and taught it, while Pharisees 
taught the election of a few, and Sadducees denied, 
He said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs 
is the kingdom of heaven." It was a new view, 
because, though perfectly well known in the earli- 
est, childlike age, it had been lost sight of in the 
day of brutish degeneracy. When He went to the 
tomb of Lazarus He met with the old view, as 
Martha said: "I know that he will rise again in 



BEYOND THE GRAVE. 13 



the resurrection at the last day ;" and swiftly He 
controverted it with the truth, "Whosoever liveth 
and believeth in me shall never die." When Sad- 
ducees came to argue, with the dilemma which no 
Pharisee could have solved with his theology, the 
Lord let in the light at once, and said: "God is 
not the God of the dead, but of the. living ; ye 
therefore do greatly err." When the last trial 
came He taught by his very bearing a view which 
was the same He had been teaching all along. 
Phariseeism could not have said what He did. 
Sadduceeism could not have opened its mouth. 
But He said: "Let not your heart be troubled, I 
go to prepare a place for you." On the cross the 
repentant thief uttered the best faith he knew 
when he said, "Lord, remember me when thou 
comest into thy kingdom." In that far distant day 
he hoped to be remembered. The swift answer 
was, "To-day thou shalt be with me in paradise." 
But more than all teaching was his own exam- 
ple. He awaited no last-day resurrection. After 
a brief period He was again with the disciples, 



I4 LIFE ETERNAL. 



though no longer needing the opening of a door 
that He might enter. Thus He had fulfilled the 
promise which had been forgotten, which is so 
widely forgotten now, "After two days will He re- 
vive us. In the third day He will raise us up, and 
we shall live in His sight." 

This was the third view, and its history may be 
briefly told. It flourished for a time, though not 
fully understood. The Revelation made to John 
about sixty years after our Lord's resurrection, 
confirmed it. The belief in salvation, in a spirit- 
ual body, and in a spiritual world to be entered 
immediately after death, sustained the martyrs at 
the stake. But gradually there was falling away 
as to every doctrine of Christianity. The disputes 
at the Council of Nice about the Lord's nature 
and personality, show a great decline, or, rather, 
relapse on this point, and the other doctrines 
suffered likewise. At length the claim of control 
over men's future lives was asserted, and money 
was demanded for ransoming them from future 
punishment. And when this -was asserted, the 



BEYOND THE GRAVE. 



is 



Reformation arose and denied it ; but this soon 
adopted the opinions of Calvin, who was educated 
as a lawyer and had been an excellent one, and 
who founded his system on the cold and severe 
precepts of Roman law. By this law a man's sin 
attainted with loss of caste all his descendants ; so 
came the idea of all having sinned in Adam. All 
Calvin's earlier studies had taught him to regard 
the satisfaction of a debt as requiring the giving 
up of the person of the debtor to the will of the 
creditor, and in this way he pictured the life of 
our Lord as a satisfaction of the divine justice, 
wrought out by bodily sufferings and penalties. 

Thus the third view was again lost, and men 
were divided between the two others, neither of 
which was true, when the Lord gave the truth 
again to the world, this time fully and finally. 
Having led a devout man along through studies 
and meditations, by which his mind became pre- 
pared to comprehend the laws of the spiritual 
world, He at length fulfilled the promise of His 
second coming by teaching this man, Swedenborg, 



!6 LIFE ETERNAL. 



out of the Holy Word the facts of the hereafter, 
and all the truth needed to be received among 
men ere the Lord could inaugurate the age of His 
second advent, or, more correctly, second and 
final presence. 

On this particular point, the nature of the eter- 
nal life, this revelation gave the world a third view, 
the third view of to-day, as it was that of early 
Christianity. And as it was the true one then, 
the Lord's view as contrasted with that of men, the 
Scriptural view as distinguished from that of the 
Rabbis, so it is to-day. Its assertions are simply: 
There is another world; it is real; it is to this 
world 'what the soul is to the body; its nature is 
spiritual, as that of this world is natural ; into it 
men enter at death by putting off their material 
bodies which they never resume; the life there is 
unending. As to good and evil, this view is, that 
those who have fully matured their characters 
here do not radically change them after death, that 
those who are evil are in a condition of restraint, 
and that those who are willing to abide by the 



BEYOND THE GRAVE. 



17 



order of divine law are most blessedly free and 
joyful, but that both classes are in the performance 
of uses. Moreover, all who die as infants and chil- 
dren, and all those of heathen religions who have 
conformed to their principles of right, become also 
of the heavenly company. The life of the angels 
is an unending progression in administering the 
uses of heaven, and the nature of their employ- 
ment is known from the saying that they came 
and ministered to our Lord in his trials. Minister- 
ing — does not this express it? By all their vari- 
ous gifts, in the development of which the uses of 
this life gave them an apprenticeship, they minister 
to the Lord forever, serving Him without fear, in 
holiness and righteousness before Him all the days 
of their lives. 

In regard to this view, it may be remarked at 
once that it is better than the others on several 
accounts : 

I. It is of the Lord's spirit. We know Him in 
his works, and we know that He is not in them 
what He has sometimes been pictured. Sending 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



his rain on the just and the unjust, making his sun 
to rise on the evil and on the good, He is not to 
be viewed as narrow, partial, vindictive, but as the 
All-Father. The absolute sovereignty of a Roman 
master is not the type of God, for we have seen 
Him revealed, and learned that He is merciful and 
gracious. 

II. Moreover, as has been amply indicated, this 
view is scriptural, being the very one brought out 
in the teachings of our Lord. 

III. It is also more worthy to be held by 
reasonable beings than the others. Ignorance, 
whether Sadducean or agnostic, though sometimes 
boasted of, is not worthy of rational beings. It is 
really a childish obstinacy, or perhaps a temporary 
despair, which cries out, " We know nothing, and 
can know nothing of the supernatural." A loftier 
courage and faith would be much more becoming. 
And, on the other hand, to hold that God is of 
such a sort that civilized laws cannot copy Him, is 
surely unworthy. Who punishes the child with 
the father to the degree of making him equally 



BEYOND THE GRAVE. 



19 



guilty ? Who denies the heathen man all right to 
an equal chance ? Not good laws, and, therefore, 
not God, even if some so allege for Him but really 
against Him. 

IV. Tried by the test of affording motive to 
good life, the third is immeasurably the superior 
of the previous views. What motive has he who 
has no hope, or but a slender one? He may do 
what he can for those about him, and do it unself- 
ishly, but must there not be despair in his own 
heart ? 

Take this despair from him, set his eye on a great 
future for all, bid him prepare himself every day 
and hour for an unending life in a real world where 
order and beauty reign, in a real body which knows 
neither death nor pain, in the presence of God, 
whom he will no longer dread save as he is ashamed 
of his own unworthiness to be beloved by one so 
holy ; show him that this is from the Bible itself, 
is what the Lord taught, and has given anew to 
the world ; bid him remember that his highest life 
is the most loving and wise cooperation with that 



20 LIFE ETERNAL. 



Lord in his great and beneficent purposes ; and will 
not his eye kindle, his heart rejoice, his hand grasp 
more firmly the implements of his toil? /'The 
angels came and ministered. " Let him ponder 
upon it. Not unsubstantial ghosts were they, but 
radiant departed spirits ; and ministering was their 
nobleness, their bliss. Let him come with all his 
heart to love that service, in sickness and in health, 
in good repute and evil repute ; and when the 
time comes to go hence, let him say : " Lord Jesus, 
receive my spirit." " He shall enter in through 
the gates into the city," and be "as the angels of 
God in heaven." 



MAN A SPIRIT. 

"Immediately I was in the Spirit" — Rev. iv. 2. 

"\T7HERE was he? What was the region in 
which he saw the Lord, the angels and the 
Holy City ? Where are any, or where will they 
be, when, if ever, they are "in the spirit," and 
see the multitudes of the departed ? 

It may be that other questions are of more im- 
mediate importance, in that the answers of them 
bear more directly upon every-day duties ; but no 
question could be more interesting. When one 
holds up a grain of sand and endeavors to compare 
it with the mountain, every cubic foot of which 
contains the grain a myriad times ; or, when one 
catches a rain-drop upon the finger and seeks to 
compare it with the great deep, whose every wave 
is made of ten thousand such drops, — he still ob- 
tains no adequate comparison between the life that 



22 LIFE ETERNAL. 



now is and that which is to come. The one exists 
for a day, a year, at most for a century ; the other, 
beginning where this leaves off, goes on forever. 
Men take a few steps, and die, and an unending 
path is then entered upon. 

Do not all need to know something of that other 
sphere, which will soon receive them, and at whose 
open door they may be already standing ? 

Sad indeed would they be if condemned to igno- 
rance on this subject, — not only sad when those 
they love depart to this other state, but on their 
own accounts, since mystery is always unpleasant. 

But John was there, and returned, and told his 
story; and the Lord f caused him to do so for the 
world's sake. Let all then, so far as they may 
properly do so, endeavor to accompany him, and 
to learn whither he went, and how. 

Beginning by considering what all can easily 
understand, the first remark shall be that John 
appears to have made no bodily journey. He says 
he was immediately in the spirit, and that would 
imply no change of bodily location. Nor was this 



MAN A SPIRIT. 23 



possible, for he was on an island to which he had 
been banished to prevent his preaching, and there 
he must remain. 

No, he made no bodily journey. Nor shall 
others. When they come to die and to see the 
other world, their bodies will be quiet. The jour- 
neys by rail or sea will all have been taken, and if 
they are at the moment upon a journey, it need 
not be continued. 

Furthermore, it is an idea easy to form that 
John, although he came to be present with the de- 
parted, was not required to go through such a 
change as has been supposed necessary. He did 
not even need to die, as is seen from the fact that 
he afterward wrote and spoke of all he saw. His 
body did not need to be buried and then await a 
judgment day, and come forth, and be put together 
again, and resume its place on this earth, which 
had by some means been freed from the evil and 
from all the effects of their wickedness. On the 
contrary, the change was made immediately, and 
if nothing else would do so, this single text would 



24 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



deal a fatal blowlo the old ideas of long waiting 
in the grave and sudden reawakening to life. 

The next point about which there is really no 
room for doubt is that the objects which he saw, 
and about which men are told in this Book of 
Revelation, were real objects, and not mere visions 
of the brain. It is clear that John saw and de- 
scribed the appearance of the Lord, and that he 
heard His words. If the Lord's world be real, so 
much more is He Himself; and, in coming before 
His face, John came into a reality in comparison 
with which the island of Patmos, where his body 
was, was but a shadow. 

Moreover, he saw angels, and would have wor- 
shipped one of them, but the angel said, " See thou 
do it not, for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy 
brethren the prophets and of them that keep the 
sayings of this book/' (Rev. xxii. 9.) He also 
saw a great multitude which was said to be of all 
nations and kindreds and tongues, and these were 
certainly the people or of the people who had de- 
parted this life. 



MAN A SPIRIT. 



25 



He also saw a city of magnificent description, 
and was told that the nations of those who were 
saved would enter into it, and that the glory of 
the Lord lightened it. Thus the city was as real 
as the nations and as the Lord. 

Much more of equal reality was seen and de- 
scribed with equal exactness, but these suffice to 
show that at once he came into a state in which 
he saw objects before invisible to him, and which 
would have continued to be invisible to him, but 
for the Divine permission and assistance. 

Next, it is clearly apparent that John was, for 
the time at least, in the other world, — in the com- 
panionship and amid the scenes which he would 
have enjoyed if already removed from this life and 
established in the life hereafter. 

The island of Patmos, desolate, lonely, a mere 
place of banishment, could not afford the views 
portrayed in this book of the Holy Word. Nor 
could any other part of this earth, or of the sky, 
have presented such scenes. He was not in Asia, 
but in the spirit, and must have been in some other 



2 6 LIFE ETERNAL. 



sphere than the earthly in order to see and to hear 
what he saw and heard. 

His bodily eyes, suited to receive impressions 
only from material things, could not behold the 
throne. His ears, capable of reporting only the 
vibrations of our air, could not have heard the 
anthems of the angelic choirs. Nor could his hand 
of flesh take up anything but what was of the sub- 
stance of matter; it could not take the little book 
(Ch. x.) out of the hand of the mighty angel 
"whose face was as it were the sun, and his feet 
like pillars of fire." 

Is there any real room for doubt that he was for 
the time in heaven, that he had powers which en- 
abled him to be there, that he had these powers 
while still in the body, that they were not the 
powers of the body, these being inadequate to the 
purpose, that in order to come into the use of 
these powers he took no bodily journey, nor passed 
through the change of death, and that neverthe- 
less his contact with the other life was real and 
full? 



MAN A SPIRIT. 27 



So far thought has been given to John and to his 
experience with an implied intention to conclude 
from him to others, and to learn of others' powers 
and possibilities as to coming into the spirit, when 
the Lord shall call them from this life. 

Before doing so, however, and in order to do so, 
it will be of use to consider that it is made a mat- 
ter of Scripture declaration that others have had 
similar experience. If this prove true, the matter 
becomes at once plain, and the conclusion is easy, 
that what John did was possible to all, and illus- 
trates the general way in which men come into 
the other world, and tells where that other world 
is. 

A striking case of similar admission, during this 
life and without a preparatory process of journey 
or essential change of any sort, is found in the 
sixth chapter of the second book of Kings. The 
prophet Elisha was pursued by a hostile band who 
surrounded his place of abode in the night. Next 
morning, his servant looked forth, and cried out, 
4 'Alas, my master, what shall we do?" And he 



28 LIFE ETERNAL. 

answered, "Fear not, for they that be with us are 
more than they that be with them. ,, And Elisha 
prayed, and said, "Lord, I pray thee, open his 
eyes, that he may see." "And the Lord opened 
the eyes of the young man ; and he saw ; and be- 
hold the mountain was full of horses and chariots 
of fire round about Elisha." 

Thus the servant, though not different from 
other men, could be " immediately in the spirit," 
and could see what would have been invisible 
otherwise. 

Such instances abound. Daniel came into the 
same state. He says (tenth chapter), " I lifted up 
mine eyes and looked," and he beheld a glorious 
figure. He adds, " I Daniel alone saw the vision ; 
for the men that were with me saw not the vision; 
but a great quaking fell upon them so that they 
fled to hide themselves." This instance is strik- 
ing, as showing that Daniel was admitted to a 
view which was not seen by others ; and it de- 
clares that he and John and others required per- 
mission before they could enter this state. 



MAN A SPIRIT. 29 



But while these instances abound with the patri- 
archs and prophets of Old Testament time, they 
are none the less seen in the Gospel history. 

At the time of the Lord's coming into the 
world, an angel, Gabriel, was seen by both Zacha- 
rias and Mary ; and, while he had been unknown 
to them before, and was not seen again, for the 
time their admission to his presence was com- 
plete. 

Angels, too, were seen by the shepherds, at 
Bethlehem, who also heard their chorus of joy 
over the Nativity. 

Angels were seen by the women who came to 
the sepulchre, and were heard to say, "He is not 
here, he is risen. " 

And a remarkable example of this sort took 
place with the disciples, Peter, James and John, 
who went up into a mountain with their master, 
and no longer saw Him with their bodily eyes, in 
the face and garments which were commonly be- 
fore them; but beheld him in glory, and Moses 
and Elias with Him ; and these were then not in 



3° 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



the flesh, and thus the Lord was seen with eyes 
like those by which He was seen by the angels, 
who ministered unto Him. 

Thus John's case is seen to be but one of many, 
and to illustrate a general fact. Let this fact now 
be stated. Men have already the natures which 
belong to the other world. They have the facul- 
ties of sight, hearing, and so forth, which are re- 
quired to make them alive in that world. But 
these are, for the time, clothed by a material body, 
and thus limited to the material world. Yet the 
man may be separated temporarily or permanently 
from the body, and then be cognizant of the events 
of the spiritual world. Thus, dying is simply do- 
ing permanently what John did for a short time, 
and what Elisha's servant, and Daniel, and Mary, 
did for short times, permission being granted for 
important purposes. 

To the question where is the other world? 
where was John when in the spirit ? the answer is 
now ready. He was not anywhere in this world. 
He left his body where it was ; but he became 



MAN A SPIRIT. 3 x 



conscious of a world not in this one, nor of it, but 
in which he could be present immediately. 

Where is heaven ? It is where men's spirits now 
are, though clothed and concerned with material 
bodies. It is where the departed are, because 
their covering of flesh has been removed. It is 
where others will consciously be when removed 
at death from their bodies. Now they are not 
conscious of that world, but their consciousness 
and all dependent faculties are engaged in this 
world. Sometime they shall be released from 
this world, and then no long journey nor delay will 
be required ere they enter upon the other, the 
spiritual, world. 

It is possible, with the help of the unwise from 
the other side, to rend the veil and to become 
what are called spiritual mediums ; but New- 
Churchmen realize more fully than all others that 
this is to infringe Divine Order, and to expose the 
soul to great dangers. It is the Lord's work to 
take men hence. It is theirs to w r ait for Him to 
do so. He in His Scripture is the guide of all 



32 LIFE ETERNAL. 



men, — nor can any other be looked to as a safe 
Shepherd of the sheep. 

To all this, which seems to be a clear and rea- 
sonable view, there is only one objection. It ex- 
alts one's idea of the Lord's mercy. It illumines 
the pages of Scripture with heavenly radiance. It 
bears most solemnly upon the present life ; teach- 
ing with tremendous emphasis the need of prepa- 
ration to depart, at any time and at once, to, the 
world where the final home will be taken. It is 
most helpful in times of trial. It stretches forth 
before one at all times a vista of indescribable 
beauty. 

But there is one objection, sufficient with the 
many, and that is that the idea is new. It seems 
incredible that Christian people should be disin- 
clined to find new truth in the Scripture, but many 
have such a feeling to their loss. 

What is new truth ? An invention, in the sense 
of a human production ? Not at all. What was 
the discovery of the use of steam ? It was simply 
the fact becoming known that a power had lain 



MAN A SPIRIT. ^3 



unused and unknown up to that time, but now had 
been revealed. So of the telegraph, so of the 
knowledge of astronomy, so of everything true. 
Once it was not known, but the fact was always 
there. At length, under Divine Providence, it 
was seen. 

Then came glad reception by some, but preju- 
dices had always to be conquered. The Church 
itself forced Galileo to conceal his new knowledge 
of the fact that the earth revolved about the sun, 
and the Church in that day of its extreme igno- 
rance held the idea concerning the other world 
which the majority of its members hold to-day. 

But what was plain to Galileo has now become 
plain to all, and thus what was plain to Sweden- 
borg is slowly becoming plain to all. They see 
that a glorious truth, contained all the time in 
Scripture, was not made known at first. 

Object because an idea is new! Why not object 
to the discovery of the power of electricity because 
it was not discovered a thousand years earlier? It 
was discovered when the Lord saw the fit time 



34 LIFE ETERNAL. 



had come. So also of this new view of death, and 
blessed be He who allows it to be made known in 
our day. "The people that walked in darkness 
have seen a great light : they that dwell in the 
land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the 
light shined." 

The application of this truth needs but few 
words. 

The other world is always near. It is no dis- 
tant part of our planet. It is not to be reached by 
any long journey. There is to be no delay in the 
oblivion of the grave. Thus there will be no time 
for preparation after leaving this life, before enter- 
ing upon the other. As men live, they die ; as 
they die, they live again, the same in nature, 
whether in some degree of purification from evil, 
or with every harmful habit in full strength. 

Nor have they necessarily any long warning. 
John had none on that Lord's day. The disciples 
had none when they went up into the mountain. 
Others may have none, but some day, as they go 



MAN A SPIRIT. 



35 



about their daily tasks, may depart from the flesh 
forever. 

That all will go at some time or other is certain, 
and that this life is a preparation for the other 
is declared everywhere in Scripture. "Behold," 
saith the Lord, " I come quickly, and my reward 
is with me to give every man according as his 
work shall be." 

Are all ready, or are they trying to become so? 
Are their affairs so ordered that, if they go hence 
to-morrow, no accusation of unfaithfulness will blot 
their memory? Are they trying to learn to work, 
and to work in the heavenly way, so that, when 
they come into the spirit, there may be neither 
reluctance at the new duty nor undue laborious- 
ness in its performance? Are they at peace with 
all ? Are they trying to act with the Lord, not 
burying the talent beneath a corroding earth of 
selfish indulgence, but seeking to increase it for 
His sake? Are they as those who " wait for their 
lord when he will return from the wedding, that 



3 6 LIFE ETERNAL. 



when he cometh and knocketh, they may open to 
him immediately ?" 

Finally, let all remember, — in sickness and 
health, when they see friends removed from the 
flesh, and when new souls enter this world, — let 
them remember that, as John was "immediately 
in the spirit/' and as others are spoken of in Script- 
ure as having had similar experience, they may 
conclude that the great other world already pos- 
sesses them as to the spiritual part, but that for the 
time they are clothed in flesh, and their conscious- 
ness limited to this world ; and that the process of 
death is but the change of consciousness ; and that 
no lingering in graves, till the earth shall rend, is 
revealed as God's truth. 

" But they shall walk in robes of white, 

With kings and priests abroad ; 
And they shall summer high in bliss, 

Upon the hills of God." 



DEATH. 

" Not dead, but sleep eth" — Luke viii. 52. 

T^HE question, " Is there a life hereafter ?" has 
given place, in the advancement of the age, to 
the question, "Of what nature is the life here- 
after ?" And, while this is engrossing the atten- 
tion of many, a few have progressed to some clear- 
ness of comprehension on this latter point, and are 
now interested in a third question, namely, " How 
do we come from this life into the other ?" "By 
what process," they would ask, "with what sensa- 
tions, if with any, are we removed from the mate- 
rial body, and introduced to scenes now invisible ? " 
When one is attempting to form some notion of 
a new thing, he is wont to ask first, "What is it 
like ? " If the answer implies that it is something 
not in the least resembling any object of previous 
knowledge, the expectation of coming to any ade- 



38 LIFE ETERNAL 



quate understanding of the new object is instantly 
checked. If, however, he can learn that it resem- 
bles, even in the least degree, a matter of previous 
acquaintance, he can learn the difference in form 
or other qualities ; and, without having seen it or 
being sure that he is right, he has some rest in his 
notion. 

Thus, if to one in the full enjoyment of this life, 
and quite unacquainted with the phenomenon of 
death, a friend should say, " Death will come to 
you sooner or later," a responsive interest would 
lead him to ask a description of death. " It is a 
change," might be returned. " Of what sort?" 
would be the next question; and here there would 
be hesitation, and at last an answer varying to suit 
the informant's religious views. 

Suppose the question to be put by one thor- 
oughly in earnest. It may be pressed by the child 
who listens with dread to the labored breathing of 
its sick parent, and longs to know what is to come ; 
or, brought to look upon the silent face which it 
shall never see again, stands tearful and hushed, 



DEATH. 39 



and wonders what is this? It may be the question 
of the grown man who marches to the battle, side 
by side with his tried comrade, and in an hour 
sees that comrade lie, unheeding the tumult, and 
giving no answer to the shout of victory. It may 
be the gentle seeking of the aged, whose hands 
are no longer strong in holding the implements of 
toil, and who patiently await the final hour, yet 
knowing not what it will bring. 

With all these the question is one, a beseeching 
cry for light, though it be but a ray; a prayer 
for an answer, though it be but a word. "What 
is death ?" they ask. "What takes place in artic- 
ulo mortis, in that momentous instant of time in 
which the hold upon this world, which may have 
lasted nearly a century, is irrevocably relaxed ?" 

Attending first to the view which has most often 
been taken, it may be stated that that theory of 
the resurrection which implies that the other life 
is in the far distant future, to be inaugurated at 
the judgment-day, and to be enjoyed only by the 
elect, who are to be restored to this earth, which 



4 o LIFE ETERNAL. 



is itself at the same time to be purified by fire, is 
a view which gives at once the most decided and 
most unwelcome answer to the question. This 
view as once held by all Christian people, and 
as held by not a few at the present day, should 
first be considered. It will be found to give, as has 
been said, a plain answer. " Is death like any- 
thing with which I am acquainted ?" The answer 
as so rendered is simply, No, an irreversible and 
appalling No ! 

To suppose that a man can have any acquaint- 
ance with a state of being in which his life is in 
any sense suspended for centuries is an absurdity. 
He knows about various forms of life and states of 
existence, but coming to an end, or coming so 
near to an end that he cannot be said to live in a 
body, is to him the very blackness of darkness, the 
utter absence of a notion. Yet, from this point of 
view, no other answer can be had. The words 
may be varied. Death maybe described as that 
process by which existence is suspended, or as 
the undoing of the tie which binds to life; but 



DEATH. 



41 



the light breaks not in to drive away the chill 
which the very word brings with it. " Wait, and 
God will show you what it is; be patient and 
not fearful :" this may be answered, and nothing 
more. 

The idea that the resurrected dead are to oc- 
cupy this earth is indissolubly connected with the 
idea that the divine mercy in prolonging life is to 
be limited to a small portion of the human race. 
It matters not that by the adoption of a date for 
the commencement of human life upon this earth, 
which indeed would be credited only by the igno- 
rant, it may be made conceivably possible for 
some part of those who have died to return, and 
to find standing-room. The thought of God's an- 
nihilating any part of His human creatures is too 
repulsive to survive, and it loses ground every 
day. And, in its company, departs also that no- 
tion of death which implies a long waiting, in the 
grave or elsewhere, for restoration to life. 

If this idea be departing, it will be right to turn 
from its answer in search of another, and to put 



42 LIFE ETERNAL. 



the same inquiry to that steadily increasing com- 
pany gathered from all parts of the Christian 
Church and from without it, and consisting of 
those who believe that the other world even now 
is, and that it is inhabited by those who have de- 
parted this life in all time since the Creator intro- 
duced man into existence. They believe this 
other world to be one of spiritual substance, and 
therefore not visible to the outward and material 
eye, but which is perfectly real, and which has at 
certain times been rendered cognizable to men 
and women of whom we read, especially in the 
Scriptures, and thus that the glorious visions of 
the prophets were glimpses of the wonders of this 
heavenly world. 

To those who take this inspiring view of the 
hereafter, the question which now engages atten- 
tion still remains, though it loses something of its 
absorbing interest. For there are those so child- 
like in faith that, when once convinced of the 
truth of the future existence, they easily await the 
process by which they are to obtain it, be that 



DEATH. 43 



process painful or agreeable, of longer or shorter 
duration. 

But, apart from these, there will still remain 
many who are more than ever ready to investigate 
the change called death, because they are more 
than ever hopeful of obtaining an understanding 
of the matter. 

Speaking for those who believe in a real life 
hereafter, into which men are ushered upon finish- 
ing the earthly existence, the partial reply may be 
made that death is not a long journey through 
space ; for all idea of the spiritual world as distant 
in space must be excluded as gross and sensuous. 

It may also be suggested that death is probably 
not an instantaneous or forcible projecting of the 
individual into another sphere of existence. It 
would be impossible to show any reason why this 
should be so, and why this alone of all processes, 
either of growth or decay, should not be gradual. 
Certainly, no one who looks upon the face of a 
deceased person, often becoming full of a new 
beauty and seeming to smile, will be inclined to 



44 LIFE ETERNAL. 



believe that there has been any sudden blazing 
upon the sight of a strong and unaccustomed light. 
The teaching of the Scripture supports the ar- 
gument here. That frame, through which had 
flowed the blessed influences which gave sight to 
the blind and hearing to the deaf, was crucified, 
was buried, and rose again. Having arisen, it was 
not known by those who had been the daily com- 
panions of the Saviour, nor was shut out by doors, 
but entered to the secreted disciples. The conclu- 
sion is that it was such a body as was adapted to 
the other world, and that the process of death had 
been performed. While no one doubts this, let it 
be remembered that this process occupied some 
part of three days, and that this single case would 
lead men to believe that death is not a sudden, but 
a gradual surrender of the earthly powers. As if 
to leave no doubt upon the subject, it is expressly 
declared in Hosea vi., apparently as of universal 
application, that " after two days will He revive us : 
in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall 
live in His sight." 



DEATH. 



45 



The conclusion is thus arrived at, that a much 
clearer view of death results from the new than 
from the old view of the hereafter, and that the 
weight of reasoning and the direct statements of 
Scripture, favor the idea that death is so gradual a 
cessation of bodily life as to continue till the third 
day. 

This is vastly better than total ignorance upon 
the subject, but it is evidently only an approxima- 
tion to an answer to the oft-repeated question. It 
may be however, that still more light can be had, 
and for this purpose the pages of the Bible are 
confidently turned. 

It has been said that many entertain the belief 
that the prophets, in some instances, were admit- 
ted while still in the flesh to the realities of the 
other life. This idea is not only reasonable in it- 
self, but it is also an extremely comforting thought 
as leading one to believe that God intends in this 
way to make men beforehand acquainted with that 
which is to come. It is also frequently and directly 
stated in these visions, that the inspired person 



46 LIFE ETERNAL 



saw and conversed with angels, or with the spirits 
of the departed. It will occur to mind instantly, 
that to obtain an idea of the process by which 
these prophets were introduced into the spiritual 
world is to take a long step toward understanding 
the phenomenon of death. One cannot attempt 
to follow this process in the case of different per- 
sons without perceiving that, in many instances, 
the individual was led into the sphere of the here- 
after through sleep. And the whole labor, on their 
part, was simply to fall asleep. 

Daniel saw at one time (Ch. viii.) a combat be- 
tween a ram and a he-goat, and heard one saint 
speaking, and another saint answering. Soon the 
angel Gabriel came to instruct him in the mean- 
ing of the vision. It must appear that, at this 
time, he was veritably present in the spiritual 
world. How had he obtained entrance thither? 
"Now, as he was speaking unto me, I was in a 
deep sleep on my face, toward'the ground; but he 
touched me, and set me upright. " He had fallen 



DEATH. 



47 



asleep, and the angel spoke to him, awaking him 
to knowledge of spiritual things. 

Again (Ch. x.) Daniel saw a personage whose 
appearance was of the same glorious nature with 
that described by other prophets, and by John in 
the Revelation, as one " like unto the Son of man." 
The way in which he came to see this being is 
thus described: "when I heard the voice of his 
words, then was I in a deep sleep on* my face ; 
. . . and, behold, an hand touched me." 

There is one passage to which one may con- 
stantly refer, while endeavoring to gain light upon 
this subject, because its statements are exceedingly 
clear. The account of the Lord's transfiguration 
brings indisputably to view the fact that, hundreds 
of years after their decease, two persons were 
made visible to men. Moses and Elias were seen 
to talk with the Lord. They had died, and were 
now in the spiritual world ; consequently, in seeing 
them, the three disciples, Peter, James, and John, 
were admitted temporarily to a participation in 
the scenes of the other life. The question is, in 



48 LIFE ETERNAL. 



what way was this done? "But Peter and they 
that were with him, were heavy with sleep ; and 
when they were awake, they saw His glory, and 
the two men that stood with Him." 

In this case, as in the two preceding, we are in- 
formed of the sleep, after some part of the vision 
is described, as if they fell asleep and seemed to 
themselves to dream what they saw, and were at 
length awaked, but with no interruption of the 
vision. They slept, and dreamed into full wake- 
fulness in the angelic company. 

Other instances of sleep, as a means of bringing 
persons into a state of conscious communication 
with the heavenly world, might easily be adduced. 
Thus in Genesis, Ch. xv. it is said that '• a deep 
sleep fell upon Abram," upon which the future of 
his race was revealed to him. Job says, (Ch. 
xxxiii. ) " In a dream, in a vision of the night, when 
deep sleep falleth upon man, in slumberings upon 
the bed, then He openeth the ears of men. " And 
this he said, out of his own experience (Ch. iv.): 
" In thoughts from the visions of the night, when 



DEATH. 49 



deep sleep falleth upon men, . . . then a spirit 
passed before my face. ... It stood still, but I 
could not discern the form thereof. An image 
was before mine eyes; there was silence and I 
heard a voice, saying, ' Shall mortal man be more 
just than God? Shall a man be more pure than 
his Maker?'" It is written by Zechariah the 
prophet (Ch. iv.) "And the angel that talked with 
me, came again and waked me, as a man is wak- 
ened out of his sleep ; and said unto me, What 
seest thou?" Of Elijah, also, it is said (i Kings, 
Ch. xix.) "And as he lay and slept under a juni- 
per-tree, behold, then an angel touched him." 

An apparent rejoinder to this argument would 
be to say that the sleep of the prophets and disci- 
ples undoubtedly resulted from natural causes, as 
from weariness, and was not induced for the pur- 
pose suggested. But this does not in the least 
invalidate the inference. The statement is not as 
to the cause of their sleep ; but their sleep being 
from whatever cause, it is argued that this was 



5° 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



then accompanied with a wakening of the inward 
sight to spiritual scenes. 

Every one knows how varied are the causes of 
death ; but the question is concerning the process 
of death, which is presumably the same in all cases, 
since the event is always a transfer of the con- 
sciousness from this world to the next. 

Certain instances may therefore be adduced in 
Bible history, showing that a virtual transfer of 
the mind to the future world and to the presence 
of the departed has been made by sleep. By many 
this will be regarded as sufficient. They will re- 
member that sleep is frequently spoken of in the 
Scriptures as the equivalent of death ; and though, 
in the Old Testament, this sleep is described as 
gloomy and lasting, in the New it is made plain 
that it is but the gentle way of passing the door 
which openeth to immortality. 

When the martyr Stephen stood before his ac- 
cusers, "and all that sat in the council, looking 
upon him, saw his face as it had been the face of an 
angel," he boldly and sweetly laid before them his 



DEATH. 



51 



faith ; but "they cried out with a loud voice, and 
stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one 
accord, and cast him out of the city and stoned 
him. And he kneeled down and cried with a loud 
voice, * Lord, lay not this sin to their charge/ 
And when he had said this, he fell asleep." He 
heard no longer the jeers of the multitude, nor felt 
the sharp pain as their missiles bruised his flesh : 
he had fallen asleep, and his Lord would wake 
him to the presence of those who like him had 
borne, and had been patient ; and death would be 
for ever passed. 

The Lord said of the daughter of the ruler, 
"she is not dead, but sleepeth ; " telling that what 
they supposed to be virtual extinction was not such, 
but only a yielding of the mind and body to sleep, 
whence at His word she would awake. He said, 
to be sure, at another time, " Lazarus is dead ; " 
but this was for the reason that the disciples mis- 
construed His first words, "Our friend Lazarus 
sleepeth." 

The question, which has been considered, is one 



52 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



for which many would seek a scientific answer, 
relying more upon the observation of physicians 
than upon revelation. But all should rely upon 
both, letting the one assist the other. The follow- 
ing, taken from the " Popular Science Review," 
are the words of an eminent English surgeon upon 
this very point. He says, " At his entrance into 
the world, man sleeps into existence and awakens 
into knowledge. At his exit from the world, he 
dozes into sleep, and sleeps into death. " And he 
continues in a passage of remarkable beauty, in 
a description of the perfectly natural death, as 
several times observed by him in all its stages : 
"The faculties of the mind which have been in- 
tellectual, without pain, or anger, or sorrow, lose 
their way, retire, rest. Ideas of time and place 
are gradually lost ; ambition ceases ; repose is the 
one thing asked for, and sleep day by day gently 
and genially whiles away the hours. The wakings 
are short, painless, careless, happy ; awakenings 
to a busy world, to hear sounds of children at play, 
to hear just audibly gentle voices offering aid and 



DEATH. 



53 



comfort, and to talk a little on simple things. At 
last, without pain or struggle or knowledge of the 
coming event, the deep sleep that falls so often is 
the sleep perpetual, euthanasia." 

These are the words of one whose object it is to 
speak only of the physical death. He paints but 
the outline of the picture ; he describes but the 
first stage of the happy journey. Softly again will 
the mind awake, and without surprise or fear, for 
the awakening is to the presence of those departed 
already, towards whom the soul has yearned for 
long years ; to the presence of the lamented parent 
or consort or child, to a holy reunion, to a sacred 
and restful welcome home. As the weary bark 
glides from the heaving sea into the smooth har- 
bor; so, softly and dreamily, the weary one re- 
moves from the material body, from sorrow and 
death and crying, to the green pastures and still 
waters of the life beyond. 

It matters not how violent has been the illness, 
how agonized the frame. As, when the man is 
suddenly struck down, he can afterwards remem- 



54 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



ber nothing but a shock and the reawakening 
among his friends, while all the tumult of the dis- 
aster is a perpetual blank ; so, looking back in the 
hereafter, men will remember only that they fell 
asleep in one world, and waked in another, fell 
asleep as they do every night and waked as they 
do every morning, except that the scene soon be- 
came changed, and was inexpressibly more lovely. 
This, then, should be one's confidence in health, 
and this the glorious prospect of the hereafter; 
while, for the change, let it not be feared ; but 
rather let all look forward gladly to coming to the 
end of this life, and into the company of the be- 
loved departed. 

" Sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, 
Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. " 



THE LORD'S EXAMPLE IN DEATH. 

"He will swallow up death in victory." — Isaiah xxv. 8. 

W 7HEN our Lord came among men, He found 
them regarding death with superstitious 
dread. They held somewhat different views in 
respect to it ; but all their views were false and 
fearful. Some believed that till the last day they 
would lie in their graves, and that the righteous 
among them would then rise from the earth, while 
the rest would not awake. Some thought that the 
resurrection would extend only to the Jews ; others 
thought that only the graves about Jerusalem and 
those into which some earth from Jerusalem had 
been cast, would be opened. Some could find no 
ground for this, or any faith on this point, in the 
law or prophets, and refused to accept the teach- 
ing of the Rabbis. 

The best view held at that day was expressed 



56 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



by Martha, at the grave of Lazarus, when she 
said, " I know that he will rise again in the resur- 
rection at the last day." At some remote period, 
a catastrophe would rend the earth, and the right- 
eous brother would come forth, after his long 
sleep, to dwell again by the holy city. This was 
all. There was no knowledge of spiritual life, of 
life apart from flesh, of a kingdom not of this world. 
Death had fallen like a blight upon the family, 
taking away its head, to the earthy dungeon, and, 
when funeral rites, which were mere wailing, had 
been performed, there was no more to be done ex- 
cept to go daily to the grave, and lament the irre- 
coverable loss. Their only consolation, if such it 
could be called, was expressed in the Word, thus : 
"Call for the mourning women that they may 
come ; let them make haste and take up a wailing 
for us. . . . Let mine eyes run down with tears 
night and day, and let them not cease." (Jer. ix. 
17; xiv. 17.) 

He came to these, sitting thus in the "shadow 
of death," and by His words, and especially by His 



THE LORD'S EXAMPLE IN DEATH. 



57 



example, did "guide their feet into the way of 
peace. " It is evident that, to people so devoid of 
spiritual thought, no clear idea of the other world 
could be presented. "If I have told you earthly 
things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I 
tell you of heavenly things?" But if He might 
not speak to them all the truth, He could give 
them an example. 

That He early became aware of the presence of 
the angels, and of their helpful companionship, we 
can see from many of His words, as when He 
spake of the angels guarding little children, and of 
those who took the poor beggar to be with Abra- 
ham. The fact of His birth without human pater- 
nity led Him early to His true Father, and with 
that Father in heaven He learned to commune. 
This brought the angels to Him, and, as with 
those of the Golden Age, they were manifestly 
present, ministering in times of temptation, and 
speaking with Him on mountains, in night watches, 
of the death He should accomplish at Jerusalem. 

Two facts He could show the people, and they, 



5 8 LIFE ETERNAL. 



if they acknowledged them, would be lifted up 
above their dread, and be enabled to meet death 
calmly, thenceforth, and till a time of fuller reve- 
lation should come. First, He could show them 
that He understood it, and did not dread it; 
secondly, that He was lord over it, and could de- 
liver from it, that is, from all the terrors which had 
attended it. 

So He foretold His own death peacefully, say- 
ing, "I go unto the Father." " I lay down my 
life that I may take it again." " I go to prepare 
a place for you." So He stopped the funeral pro- 
cession coming out of Nain, and gave the son back 
to his mother. So He went in where the hired 
mourners were lamenting over Jairus's daughter, 
and took her by the hand, and said, " Little maid, 
arise ; " and she was alive again. So He went up 
to Bethany, after one had been dead four days, 
and, while He mingled His own tears with those 
of His heart-broken friends, He bade them roll 
away the stone and called to Lazarus within, and 
gave him to his people again, — a living witness of 



THE LORD'S EXAMPLE IN DEATH. 



59 



the fact that He was "the resurrection and the 
life." 

To the Sadducees, whose contempt for mere 
traditions led them to deny the common belief, 
He showed that in the law itself there was teach- 
ing as to the eternal life. To His disciples, on 
the last night, He spoke of His going aw r ay, and 
when they questioned Him further, showing that 
they knew nothing as yet of the heavens, He 
answered, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the 
Life/' " Let not your heart be troubled ; neither 
let it be afraid." 

He must himself die, because thus He would 
fulfil all the law of human life, thus giving up the 
infirmities He had borne in order that He might 
encounter and overcome all the enemies of man. 
And He would have died very gently, perhaps 
falling asleep during some twilight prayer, but 
that the hatred of man which had hitherto pursued 
Him, demanded leave to regard Him as a felon, 
and to seek by torture to destroy Him, and to 
stamp out all the brotherliness He had inculcated. 



6o LIFE ETERNAL 



Thus had they been permitted to abuse the 
Holy Word and its prophets, though they could 
not destroy. Thus would the unutterable mercy 
of the Lord permit them to order the death He 
should die, seeing that its great triumph they 
could not lessen. He had said, "Unto him that 
smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the 
other," and He said this because He loved submis- 
siveness rather than vengeance. 

He bore without resistance the unjust inquisi- 
tion of Annas and Caiaphas. He stood still, bound 
and already exhausted, while the council heard 
its false witnesses, and uttered its decision against 
Him. He went quietly to stand before Pilate, 
and then to Herod, and then to Pilate again. The 
face was already bruised and bleeding from the 
abuse of the soldiers ; but He bowed without com- 
plaint and bore the dreadful scourging until they 
dared to torture Him no longer, lest failing strength 
should rob them of the satisfaction of inflicting 
upon Him that most frightful of deaths, unknown 






THE LORD'S EXAMPLE LN DEATH. 6 1 

to Jews, unworthy of the vilest Romans, inflicted 
only upon slaves, — the death by crucifixion. 

It was near ten o'clock in the forenoon, in a sea- 
son as heated as our midsummer, when a guard of 
Roman soldiers led through the streets of Jerusa- 
lem three prisoners, each bleeding from many 
wounds, each tottering under the weight of two 
bars bound upon the arms and crossed upon the 
back of the neck, — and one of these was He who 
had been teaching men how to die. Verily, the 
teaching was come to the proof. 

A crowd lined the way, and joined the proces- 
sion as it passed. How could the women fail to 
weep when they saw Him sinking beneath His 
load, " His visage was so marred, more than any 
man, and His form more than the sons of men ?" 
But He said only, " Weep not for me, but for your- 
selves and your children." The future, which He 
knew, would bring them agonies which even now 
more moved Him than His wounds. 

They reached the place ; the soldiers kept back 
the crowd, while others executed the final deed. 



62 LIFE ETERNAL. 



At such times, horrid imprecations were wont to 
rend the air, while the nails were driven through 
the flesh. All that was heard from Him was, 
" Father, forgive them, they know not what they 
do." A touch of pity offered Him wine, mingled 
with myrrh, that it might stupefy the sufferer, and, 
in a degree, diminish the agony. "And when He 
had tasted, He would not drink. " There was 
work for Him in that dread hour, lest the forces 
of hell, thronging upon Him, might, for an instant, 
prevail, and extort one thought of bitterness. 
Therefore "He would not drink. " 

The crowd scoffed Him with loud jeers. The 
two on either hand reviled Him. But the hours 
of the torrid noon passed and He made no answer, 
" even as the sheep before her shearers is dumb." 
The sun blistered the naked, festering flesh, but 
the spirit was looking above the flesh and the 
crowd. "The sorrows of death compassed me, 
and the pains of hell got hold upon me. I found 
distress and sorrow. Then called I upon the 






THE LORD'S EXAMPLE IN DEATH. 63 

name of the Lord ; O Lord, I beseech thee, de- 
liver my soul." 

The voice of another was heard at length above 
the taunts. It was one of the thieves who spoke. 
Overcome by the very presence and bearing of 
Him whom he first reviled, he prayed, " Lord, 
remember me when thou comest into thy king- 
dom. " And in tones as sweet as when He spake 
the Beatitudes, He answered, " To-day thou shalt 
be with me in paradise." 

Anon, He saw in the crowd the figure of a 
woman, reckoned old in Palestine, a widow and 
disconsolate. It was the cousin of Elizabeth, the 
wife of the Nazarene carpenter ; it was she whose 
piety was His first teacher. Utterly crushed now 
with her grief, as if a sword pierced her very soul, 
she stood with the beloved disciple, and looked 
upon her dying Lord, once her first-born babe. 
Again He spake in tones of infinite pity, " Woman, 
behold thy son ; " and to the dear disciple, "Behold 
thy mother." Command of sweet gratitude for all 
she had done and suffered; fair reward, — to be 



64 LIFE ETERNAL. 



taken home and tenderly cared for by the gentlest 
of the disciples till she should enter into her rest! 

It was now three o'clock. Six hours of agony 
had passed. The end was near. Laying aside 
the Greek speech, which was used in conversing 
with the rulers and others at Jerusalem, He uttered, 
in the tongue of Nazareth, the words of the twenty- 
second Psalm, beginning, "Eloi, eloi> lama sahac- 
thani." The Psalm applied to that day, for it con- 
tinues, "All they that see me laugh me to scorn. 
My tongue cleaveth to my jaws. They pierced 
my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones ; 
they look and stare upon me." 

" I thirst," He said at length. A soldier dipped 
a sponge upon a reed in sour wine, and touched 
His lips in order to prolong the martyrdom. A 
momentary strength returned. The end had come. 
" It is finished," He said. " Father, into thy hands 
I commend my spirit." And saying these words, 
with a great voice, which hushed the crowd to 
silence, He, "the Resurrection and the Life," 
"swallowed up death in victory," and "the stone 



THE LORDS EXAMPLE LN DEATLI. 



65 



which the builders refused became the head-stone 
of the corner." 

On the third day, freed from all fleshly infirmity, 
He showed himself to His disciples ; and several 
other times during the forty days following, He 
supplemented the example of His death with the 
evident fact of continued and enlarged life, thereby 
taking from them all fear of death by giving them 
an all-controlling trust in Him. "Whether we 
live," said Paul, " we live unto the Lord, and 
whether we die, we die unto the Lord ; whether 
therefore we live or die, we are the Lord's" (Rom. 
xiv. 8). And the accounts of the martyrs are full of 
evidence to the effect that from the Christian the 
dread of death was utterly removed. 

In the present age, we may read the story of our 
Lord's life on earth in a new light. We may look 
from a spiritual point of view upon a work which 
has hitherto been viewed only on the natural side, 
and we may therefore enter more deeply into the 
meaning of His words and acts. This the best 
scholars of the day are assisting us to do by their 



66 LIFE ETERNAL. 



wonderful thoroughness of research into all the 
story. So contemplating it, we should be the 
more deeply moved by it. After His example we 
should live, and in our dying we also should seek 
to be patient, peaceful, prayerful, in order that the 
sting of death, which is sin, may have no power, 
and that, coming into His higher world, we may 
" enter into the joy of our Lord." In the light of 
His example, — 

" There is no death ! what seems so is transition ; 

This life of mortal breath 
Is but a suburb of the life elysian, 

Whose portal we call Death." 



RESURRECTION. 

1 ' And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth 
shall awake, some to everlasting life, a?id some to shame 
and everlasting contempt" — Daniel xii. 2. 

T^HE idea that men die to live again at once is 
now quite generally received. In ancient 
times it was very well known, as is learned from 
the Egyptian records and other remains of antiq- 
uity, that to die was to enter upon another life, in 
which there would be, for those who were able to 
receive it, a most peaceful existence. 

At a later day this bright conviction was some- 
what obscured, and men failed to distinguish be- 
tween the body laid in the grave and the spirit 
which had departed from it. They thought the 
natural body was the man, and that he was gone 
down to the under-world, and as this did not com- 
port with their idea of the reward of righteousness, 



68 LIFE ETERNAL. 



they believed the body would be raised again, and 
given to the spirit. 

This led to burying bodies in the place where 
the spirits would desire to be, namely, close to the 
city Jerusalem, and it led to loud and long contin- 
ued mourning at the grave, without any thought 
about another life in which the friend was at rest. 

The Lord's teaching sought to dispel this gloomy 
ignorance. In His Sermon on the Mount He 
spoke of the meek, the pure, and the merciful as 
blessed, and so broke down at once the class-dis- 
tinction which had given the possibility of resur- 
rection only to the Pharisees. And then He went 
farther and said that, instead of a resurrection at 
the last day, those who lived and believed in Him 
should never die. At the last especially He bade 
the disciples believe that they would soon go to be 
with Him where He was and where He would pre- 
pare a place for them. And to the thief, who 
asked to be remembered when He should come 
into His kingdom, He said that that very day they 
would be together in paradise. 






A'ES URRE C TION. 



69 



This light continued to shine among the early 
Christians. They did not think of the grave, but 
of going to dwell with Him. The inscriptions 
upon the Catacombs, as well as the words of the 
Apostolic writers, are full of this hope. "She 
follows a larger life, she has joy in the mansion of 
Christ/' may still be seen where it was written of 
the Christian maiden, Theodora, fifteen hundred 
years ago. 

There was a lapse of faith in this respect, a return 
to the Jewish idea from the Christian, and tomb- 
stones now standing reveal the fact that the early 
Christian conviction did not last. But now again, 
and with no likelihood of another return of dark- 
ness, the light is shining. " He is not here, but is 
risen, " can again be said at the tomb, and, with 
more and more general acceptance, the idea pre- 
vails that the last day of the Scripture promises is 
not a day of bodily resurrection, but a day, a sea- 
son, of revival of Christian religiousness. 

Yet there remain, and will remain, in the Script- 
ures certain passages which apparently teach pre- 



7o 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



cisely the doctrine of the Pharisees, and which 
seem to stand opposed alike to the ancient idea, 
to our Lord's teaching and the faith of His follow- 
ers, and to the convictions of many to-day. What 
shall be done with such a passage as this? — "And 
many of them which sleep in the dust of the earth 
shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to 
shame and everlasting contempt." 

It is said in Ezekiel, that the prophet saw a val- 
ley full of bones, and saw them all re-uniting into 
bodies, as if to show how it would be at the last 
day; and the Lord said, " I will open your graves, 
and cause you to come up out of your graves, and 
bring you into the land of Israel. " (Ezekiel 
xxxvii. 12.) 

And even in the Gospel of Matthew (xxvii. 2) 
it is said that, at the time of the crucifixion, 
"many bodies of saints which slept, arose, and 
came out of the graves after His resurrection, and 
went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." 

Such passages are not to be explained away. It 
is not a wise treatment of the Holy Word which 






res urrection: 



71 



says, " It made a mistake, or it means nothing 
now." Whatever be the explanation, it must be 
such as not to interfere in the least with the rever- 
ence felt for the Word, and with the power it 
should have over men's lives. But if the light 
can be thrown through this and its companion pas- 
sages, so that what is now obscure may become 
transparent, the Word will be still unharmed, and 
what was a cloud in the sky will become a window 
of heaven. 

Only one principle needs to be applied to this 
and to all such passages. It needs interpretation. 
They who hold it firmly as to come literally true, 
and who hold other prophecy so, are in precisely the 
attitude of the Jews who insisted that our Lord 
was not fulfilling prophecy, and slew Him as an 
imposter. Yet He was prophecy in its very life, 
and after His resurrection He showed to the disci- 
ples how perfectly all had been fulfilled. 

It was the misfortune of later Christianity that 
it went back to the Jewish manner of viewing 
prophecy in its letter, and so not in its spirit; "for 



7 2 LIFE ETERNAL. 



thus men looked, and still look, for just «such an 
appearing of the Lord in glory as the Jews looked 
for to their bitter disappointment; and the idea 
that He comes by opening His Word and reform- 
ing His Church, and dwelling in the hearts of His 
children, therefore seems fanciful and even blame- 
worthy. All the time, however, His own example 
and teachings have given to the world the law 
that the language of prophecy must be fulfilled in 
its spirit first, and in its letter only when such a 
fulfilment does not interfere with the higher one. 

Another idea now follows in course. The lit- 
eral fulfilment of a prophecy may, in the nature of 
the other world, take place there when it could not 
take place here. Here the Lord was a lamb only 
in spirit, there He was seen by John as the Lamb. 
Here He was in outward reality but a Galilean, 
there He rode upon a white horse, and had upon 
His vesture and upon His thigh a name written, 
King of kings and Lord of lords. Here the prom- 
ise that all kings should fall down before Him, and 
all nations serve Him, had no literal fulfilment, but 



RESURRECTION. 



73 



there "a great multitude which no man could 
number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, 
and tongues, stood before the throne, and before 
the Lamb." 

The miraculous of this world is the common- 
place of heaven. 

Not to follow this grand truth further, all can 
see that they should look to see such prophecies 
come true in spirit and letter in the other world, 
and in this world less fully as to the letter. 

What then is the right way in which to read 
such prophecies ? What is sleeping in the dust ? 
Who are they that did so, and that rose after our 
Lord's resurrection, and who are they of Ezekiel's 
vision ? 

In the other life the angels dwell on high, the 
evil spirits below, and between them lies an inter- 
mediate place with which men on earth are directly 
associated and into which they first come after 
death. In support of this statement the whole 
language of the Scriptures may be cited. They 
always place heaven above, they always place hell 



74 LIFE ETERNAL. 



beneath, and thus put men in an intermediate 
position. The account of the rich man lifting up 
his eyes to Abraham afar off, gives a vivid glimpse 
of the relations of spiritual position, which follow 
the laws of mental arrangement and spiritual atti- 
tude. 

To the angels the earth and the men lately de- 
parted from it and still in close association with it, 
are as it were below, that is, below the expanses 
in which they are. The " souls under the altar," 
of the Book of Revelation, they that "sleep in the 
dust of the earth " of Daniel, "the saints which 
slept" of the Gospel, "the spirits in prison" of 
Peter's first Epistle and others similarly described 
are, in the light of heaven, not any persons impris- 
oned in our cemeteries, but such as were below 
the angels, in the lower parts of the intermediate 
sphere awaiting deliverance. 

Were there such persons ? Did the Lord, as 
one object of His coming, have in view the deliv- 
erance of such persons ? When delivered, did 
they receive their final award ? 



RESURRECTION, 



75 



Such judgment was indeed one of the Lord's 
purposes in His coming. The captivity into which 
the Israelites had fallen was political, but it was 
only the result, as every one knows, of their yield- 
ing themselves into a spiritual captivity, into a ser- 
vitude wherein evil spirits, acting through evil 
passions, were the masters. The Old Testament 
is full of this, and of promises of deliverance. The 
Jews so expected it, but politically ; the angels so 
expected it, but spiritually. They expected that 
those who lay below them in restraint would be 
delivered, and they were not mistaken, though the 
Jews' earthly expectations were doomed to disap- 
pointment. They so understood the passages 
which form the prophecies already cited, and, 
after the Lord's resurrection in triumph, they saw 
with joy the saints rising into their sphere, relieved 
of oppression by Him who came " to proclaim lib- 
erty to the captives." 

Under Christianity, as under Judaism, the pro- 
gress of events led to a captivity of which the 
Book of Revelation treats, and so mention is made 



7 6 LIFE. E TERNAL. 



of the "souls under the altar " who cried out, 
"How long will thou not judge and avenge our 
blood ; " and they were bidden to rest for a time. 
Who the captors were in this case, who can doubt? 
A vast system of priestly domination, based upon 
the ignorance of the laity and enforced by torture 
of the rebellious, spread the whole width of Latin 
Christendom, claiming absolute power both here 
and over the keys of heaven. Men lived in servi- 
tude, died in it, rose in it, and remained in it till 
the Lord delivered them. 

Of the mode of effecting the Last Judgment, 
which the interpretation of this Book shows to 
have already occurred, as indeed history fully indi- 
cates, this is not the place to treat, but let all note 
one passage from a later part of the Book which 
tells of what befell the imprisoned when deliver- 
ance came. " I looked, and lo, a Lamb stood on 
mount Zion, and with him an hundred forty and 
four thousand, having his Father's name written on 
their foreheads. And they sung as it were a new 
song. These were redeemed from among men, 



RESURRE CTION. 



77 



the first fruits unto God and the Lamb. Here is 
the patience of the saints, here are they that keep 
the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." 

On the other hand, Babylon, their haughty ruler, 
tottered and fell, and " shall be found no more at 
all." 

Thus was the prophecy fulfilled ; in its spirit and 
letter on high, in its spirit on earth. The vast 
multitude who had departed this life, and whose 
final award was hindered by the prevalence of 
priestcraft and mental servitude, and delayed till 
the Lord came to restore order, was separated into 
its true parts, and went its way to eternal habita- 
tions. Only the Lord could work such a judg- 
ment, and He performed it at the time when it 
was most necessary, and when its effects would be 
most permanent. 

If only at His first coming men could have un- 
derstood it thus, if they could have fully cooper- 
ated with Him, following Him gladly, how differ- 
ent the result might have been ! As it was, He 
foresaw that He would have yet another judgment 



7 8 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



to perform, that again there would be sorrows, 
that His saints would be hated, that iniquity would 
abound, that the abomination would again stand in 
the holy place; "but," said He, "he that shall 
endure to the end. the same shall be saved." 

In such a multitude as He delivered, not all 
would be ready to enter heaven. Some would 
place themselves on the right, and some on the 
left. There is a vital difference between an obedi- 
ence that is sincere and one that is deceitful. The 
outward appearance may be the same, but He who 
"looketh on the heart" will see that one man loves 
to serve Him, and another loves only to serve him- 
self. He will see that one has laid the foundation 
for a free, loving life of service on high, and that 
the other despises such a life, and must be brought 
to usefulness through constraint, or he will do 
harm wherever he is. 

Thus of those who have awaked, as it were, at 
these times of judgment, there have been two 
classes, and only the unerring decision of Divine 
law could separate and adjudge them. 



RESURRECTION, jg 



Some, oppressed long by scheming foes, being 
sincere in heart, are delivered, and rise to everlast- 
ing life; but others, to the shame of having their 
deceits exposed, and the sheep's clothing removed 
from their wolfish natures, while "they that be wise 
shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they 
that turn many to righteousness as the stars for- 
ever and ever." 

One more point must be touched upon. This 
gathering of great numbers till the Lord interposes 
to break the power of those who rule over them, 
and hold them down, is not a condition to which 
men of this day are to look forward. They are 
becoming freer every day. The influences which 
keep them in one mass, subject to a. human lord, 
are passing away. Babylon is fallen. By her sor- 
ceries were all nations deceived, but now she hath 
been judged. When one passes now into the other 
life, he does not pass from a religious serfdom to 
a similar state, but from freedom to freedom, and 
so he can soon proceed to his own place. 

Under the working of Divine Order, his real 



8o LIFE ETERNAL. 



character soon manifests itself, and well is it for 
him if he can receive the saying, "Blessed are 
they that do His commandments, that they may 
have right to the tree of life, and may enter in 
through the gates into the city"; for this is the 
promise and privilege of the present age above all 
that have preceded. 

Now is seen what the text and other such words 
mean. They literally describe the event in the 
other world. They figuratively describe the occur- 
rence in this world of a judgment which the Lord 
would work and did work, raising from the lower 
parts of the world of spirits those who would follow 
Him, and exposing the true character of those 
who made righteousness only a pretence. 

Men, in an important sense, judge themselves, 
determine their own future, and lay the founda- 
tions of their own spiritual after-life. Daily they 
wake to everlasting life or to shame. Daily they 
separate their thoughts and deeds, and can, if they 
will, exalt what is worthy to its true place, and put 



RESURRECTION. 



down as unworthy that which is shameful in the 
sight of the Lord and the angels. 

Men can largely foresee their own future, and 
can prepare themselves for it. For they know 
that the Infinite Father has sent every one to do 
good work, to chasten his spirit, and to come 
some time to dwell on high. Only extreme and 
persevering perversenesscan jeopardize that heav- 
enly destiny. For the Lord's sake, for the sake of 
those who await them there, and of those who are 
with them here, may they so live in patience and 
uprightness that day unto day, under the Lord's 
guidance, they may wake to everlasting life! 



THE LORD'S RESURRECTION. 

" Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know" — John 
xiv. 4. 

r I ^HE festival of Easter means more or less to 
mankind according to the fulness or feeble- 
ness of perception anywhere of the event itself 
and of its bearing upon ordinary life. The man 
of science and nothing else, who admits as true 
only what he knows by touch, or sight, or taste, 
can enter but feebly into the common joy over an 
event which has indeed no force to one who doubts 
the existence of the other world. 

To him also who is led to believe that all the 
Gospel story has but a thread of truth running 
through a warp made up of the errors of enthusi- 
astic disciples, much doubt must mingle with his 
rejoicing. 

There are also those who regard the resurrection 



THE LORD'S RESURRECTION. 



83 



of men as in the far future, and so cannot draw 
from the Lord's experience direct lessons of life 
and death'; and there is a very large class, not in- 
cluded in the others, and consisting of those who 
wish to be made clear on the subject and have no 
prejudices in the matter, but are in some confusion 
when they came to apply to ordinary life what hap- 
pened with the Lord. They would ask, "What 
became of His body?" "If He rose with His 
earthly body, what is the reason that we should 
not expect to have ours rise some time? ,, "But 
if He rose with His earthly body, why did they 
not know Him at once? and how did He enter 
when the doors were shut ? " 

These and similar questions, arising in the mind 
when the Lord's resurrection is spoken of, show a 
willingness to be made clear, if a wholly reasonable 
view can be presented. 

But there is still another class, — of those who 
know about the Lord and the other world, and 
know how to draw the truth from the Lord's ex- 
perience, having no other difficulty than belongs 



84 LIFE ETERNAL. 

to finite minds. There is, of course, the impossi- 
bility of fully comprehending in all its depth of 
meaning the event of the resurrection, just as is 
the case with attempting a complete comprehen- 
sion of anything Divine and infinite. But this 
class has no difficulty in seeing in their Lord's 
resurrection the promise of their own, and the 
means of its accomplishment. 

In other words, when one speaks of having no 
difficulty with the Lord's words, or His acts, or 
His resurrection, he does not take the attitude of 
saying that his mind matches the Divine mind, 
and that his wisdom is infinite ; but simply, that, 
so far as the words or acts of the Lord bear upon 
his own life and thought, he is able by the Divine 
mercy to see, and to see clearly. With such, the 
Lord's words are not dark, His acts are not mere 
wonders, nor is the manner of His resurrection a 
mystery ; and such a nearness and fulness of view 
are, the New-Churchman believes, just what the 
Lord in His infinite goodness would have all men 
enjoy. 



THE LORD'S RESURRECTION. 



85 



Let the great subject of the Lord's death and 
resurrection be taken up one point at a time. 

I. The Lord died, and though all may have seen 
death and become familiar with it, His death will 
be found to be full of instruction. He went very 
calmly to die. The very painful manner of His 
death, more painful than men can conceive of, and 
more painful than men would have patience to en- 
dure for the sake of others, was met in a spirit 
which showed not the least uncertainty as to the 
future. " I lay down my life that I may take it 
again," He said to the disciples. And on the last 
night He said, " Peace I leave with you, my peace I 
give unto you " ; "I go that I may prepare a place 
for you." And in the prayer which followed He 
said, "I have glorified Thee on the earth, I have 
finished the work which thou gavest me to do. 
And now come I to thee, and these things I speak 
in the world that they might have my joy fulfilled 
in themselves." 

As men ponder these and similar words, spoken 
while Roman soldiers stood in their armor, or were 



86 LIFE ETERNAL. 

already on their way to take Him, are they not 
moved with shame as they recall times of dread of 
death? or perhaps reflect that all their days are 
overclouded simply because they have to die, it 
may be in their easy beds, when He, before a 
death so agonizing, was as calm as heaven ? 

This is one of the lessons of the Lord's death. 

II. But let no one fail to notice that His peace 
in those hours of torture was due to more than a 
full trust that all would be well. This is an excel- 
lent feeling if one can do no better, but, with the 
Lord, there was the clearest knowledge of the 
other life. 

This was always a part of His speech about going 
away: "In my Father's house are many mansions. 
I go that I may prepare a place for you ; and if I 
go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, 
and receive you unto myself, that where I am ye 
may be also." Let no one in these days, when the 
Divine Mercy has made very plain the contents of 
the Holy Word, live in this life ignorant of the 
other. Let no one make his will as if, in turning 






THE LORD'S RESURRECTION. gy 



over his property, he terminated his life ; but rather 
as one who lays aside his earthly blessings for the 
sake of receiving heavenly ones. 

" If we could know about the other life, we 
should be happy," all Christendom is saying ; and 
lo, all it needs to know is written where he who 
runs may read. 

III. It is important to notice that the manner of 
the Lord's death, though surrounded by such hos- 
tile and unholy influences, was as gentle as any 
could ask for themselves. He simply "gave up 
the ghost," or, as would be said in modern Eng- 
lish, " He gave out His breath," or "ceased to 
breathe." Who that has stood by the bedside of 
one near death has not been deeply moved by the 
gently advancing unconsciousness, the breathing 
less and less deep, the utter stillness of the frame, 
till at last the breath goes out, and comes in no 
more, and the body, after, perhaps, its eighty years 
of life, is at rest ? 

So it was with the Lord. Much sooner than 
usually happened with a crucified person, as the 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



day drew to its close, with a last word spoken to 
Mary, "Behold thy son," and to John, "Behold 
thy mother," He said, " Father, into thy hands I 
commend my spirit ; and having said thus, He gave 
up the ghost/' And when the soldiers came to 
kill Him and the other two, lest the Sabbath 
should begin at evening with them unburied, they 
" came to Jesus and saw that He was dead already," 

IV. In regard to the time which now followed, 
it is necessary to do scarcely more than to call 
attention to the fact that at death all pass into a 
sleep. "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth. I go that 
I may awake him out of sleep," our Lord said 
when Lazarus died. The fact that to die is to go 
to sleep, has been so clearly seen, that men have 
always so spoken of it. 

When Stephen died under the attack of the foes 
of Christianity, he was upon his knees praying, 
" Lord, lay not this sin to their charge ; and when 
he had said this he fell asleep." (Acts vii. 60.) 

The quiet sinking into sleep, when one's body is 
exhausted with disease, or fatally injured in any 



THE LORD'S RESURRECTION. 



89 



way, must be delightful beyond present concep- 
tion ; but many, who have been very near death, 
have told how a sweet peace overspread the soul ; 
and how the presence of those gone before lulled 
the mind to rest. 

Remember Hood's beautiful picture of the death- 
bed:— 

" We watched her breathing through the night, 

Her breathing soft and low, 
As in her breast the wave of life 

Kept heaving to and fro. 

Our very hopes belied our fears, 

Our fears our hopes belied ; 
We thought her dying when she slept, 

And sleeping when she died. 

For when the morn came dim and sad, 

And chill with early showers, 
Her quiet eyelids closed — she had 

Another morn than ours." 

V. The Lord's body, bearing the mark of the 
nails and the wound of the soldier's spear, was 
laid in a grave, or rather in a rock-hewn tomb. 
Here the thought presents itself that much of the 



9° 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



fear of death is due to two causes, of which one is 
the dread that one may have some consciousness 
when his body is laid in the ground, and the other 
is that he must enter the other world alone. 

Both these fears are like fears of ghosts, that is, 
wholly groundless. Under the old idea that the 
body is to be resumed some time, there might be 
a fear of retaining some sort of connection with 
the buried thing, but there is no reason for think- 
ing so. Every one has noticed that, within a short 
time after death, generally by the third day, the 
expression of the face changes and loses all appear- 
ance of connection with the spirit. When the 
Egyptians spoke of knowing when their friends 
were carrying on their funerals, they did not mean 
that they would hear the songs in their old bodies, 
but from the spiritual world, as their words plainly 
show. 

So as to the other cause of dread, namely, as to 
entering the other world alone. This, too, is 
wholly groundless and unworthy. If men come 
into it by awaking out of sleep, which follows, of > 






THE LORD'S RESURRECTION, gi 



course, from the fact that dying is going to sleep, 
the question simply is, Do they awake alone and 
unattended, or otherwise ? 

The answer to this question is that, as, when 
one comes into this world he is received by those 
who love him, so, when he enters the other, in the 
most gentle manner he will wake to find himself 
attended. 

On the third day, but in reality within forty 
hours after our Lord's death, the two angels, seen 
to sit at the head and feet where His body had 
been laid, showed that the angelic attendance, 
which is provided during the earthly life, is con- 
tinued also to the time of passing from this life to 
the other. The reason that the third day is the 
day of resurrection is, that it marks a sufficient 
period of transition and of separation of the soul 
from the body. Moreover, the number three, 
which is that of Divine and human completeness, 
properly applies to the completion of the state 
called death. 

VI. Now comes a point needing some care. 



9 2 LIFE ETERNAL. 



The Lord rose on the third day ; that is, on that 
day He was again with His disciples. There was 
a difference, however, for now He was with them 
when they had the doors shut, and henceforth He 
was seen at Jerusalem, or Emmaus, or at the Sea 
of Galilee, or at Bethany, only as He made Him- 
self known. In other words, He had risen above 
the control of physical laws, and was to be seen 
only by spiritual eyes. For the same reason men 
do not now see Him with their bodily eyes. 

That this change was in harmony with the great 
law of life, there can be no doubt. After death, 
men are spirits. As it was with Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob, of whom He spoke to rebuke the Sad- 
ducees, as with Moses and Elias seen at the time 
of the Transfiguration, as with the fellow-disciple 
seen by John when in the spirit, and as with the 
great multitude out of all nations and kindreds, so 
do all, when they die, enter a spiritual state. 

The reality of that world may not seem clear to 
those who are accustomed to think of it as a mere 
shadow of this ; but if one reflects that this is 



THE LORD'S RESURRECTION. 



93 



rather the shadow of that, that there the eternal 
life has its seat, and here only the temporal one, 
he will be able to view as actually true the de- 
scriptions of the other world found in the Sacred 
Scriptures. 

But here the question arises, " Did not the Lord 
take up His earthly body, and are not we to take 
our earthly bodies ? " This is best answered by 
the simple facts. In the tomb where the Lord 
had lain, was found only grave-clothing ; in the 
graves in which men are laid, are found invariably 
earthly bodies going back to earth. This settles 
the matter. The Lord's resurrection did go be- 
yond that of men in one respect. He took His 
body, they leave theirs. He did not, of course, 
take a body weakened and dead, but He took His 
glorified form which, while it was not excluded by 
doors of wood or stone, still might show the prints 
of the nails. 

And there is a reason here which makes all 
plain. Man is to go to the other world and dwell 
there. The Lord is not to go to the other world 



9 4 LIFE ETERNAL. 



and dwell there only, but to be in all degrees of 
life. His redemption as a final work depended, 
upon this. He must be with men on earth always, 
and therefore He retained the natural with the 
spiritual, while men put off the natural. 

And no confusion arises here unless one tries to 
make out that because, as the Saviour of men of 
all ages, He retained the natural in a glorified 
state, so all men must do it. Not at all. They 
are here to prepare for the future state. Some 
time they die, and enter upon it. Thus the fact 
that their earthly bodies moulder to dust, does not 
militate against the fact that the Lord's tomb was 
empty on the third day. 

The lessons of the Lord's resurrection are, — 
calmness in view of death, perception of its nature 
as a painless sleep, knowledge of the attendance 
of angels, and expectation of awaking in their 
presence to the higher life. The fact that the 
Lord rose as to the body in a manner transcending 
the ordinary withdrawal from the material body, is 
seen to cause no confusion of thought, for only so 






THE LORD'S RESURRECTION, 95 



could He be the Divine Saviour. So He said 
calmly, "Whither I go ye know, and the way ye 
know." 



T 



REUNION ON HIGH. 

" Gathered to his people." — Gen. xlix. 29. 

HE long life of Jacob drew to its close. The 
physical frame which had borne him, many 
years before, on that journey in which heaven was 
opened so that he saw the angels ascending and 
descending ; which had enabled him to endure a 
service of twenty-one years with his kinsman, La- 
ban ; and which had, in its old age, still retained 
vigor sufficient to bear him down to Egypt to re- 
cover the long-lost son, — this frame, once so strong, 
was now approaching its dissolution. 

Knowing this, the patriarch gathered together 
his children and children's children, and solemnly 
prophesied their future. Zebulon would dwell by 
the sea. Issachar would become a servant of trib- 
ute. Joseph would be like a fruitful bough by a 
well. So having done, the last words were to be 



REUNION ON HIGH. 



97 



spoken, and in a majestic manner he ended his 
speech. Thus the account runs, 

" Everyone according to his blessing, he blessed 
them: And he charged them, and said, 'I am to 
be gathered unto my people. Bury me with my 
fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron 
the Hittite/ . . . And when Jacob had made an 
end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his 
feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and 
was gathered unto his people. " 

He had said the last words, and there was noth- 
ing now to do except to compose his body for 
burial, and to return to his ancestors. 

Precisely the same expression, — "gathered to 
his people," — is used of the deaths of Abraham, 
Isaac, and Ishmael, and was evidently a custom- 
ary phrase for expressing that which is commonly 
called death. 

Just what was understood in Jacobs day by this 
expression would be an interesting subject of in- 
quiry, but it would be a question of history rather 
than of religion. It might be found that, while 



98 LIFE ETERNAL. 

the Jews of the Lord's time had no idea of the 
hereafter, yet that sixty generations before, when 
Abraham lived, there was some knowledge of the 
subject, — a knowledge which, however, was igno- 
rance when compared with what had been known 
before. Out of a very ancient time the phrase in 
question must have come, and of its use there can 
be no doubt. 

Was Jacob indeed restored to his father and 
friends ? Did Isaac return to his kindred, and to 
Rebekah ? Was Abraham gathered to his own ? 

In considering this subject, all must confess that 
a few years have made a vast difference in the 
opinions of people upon this and kindred topics. 
Many can remember when the question, " are we 
restored to our friends by death ? " — would have 
been regarded as unanswerable. A wide line was 
drawn between those having faith and those hav- 
ing none. On the one side was promise of joy, 
on the other promise of torment ; and this was all. 
There might be no room hereafter for honesty nor 
industry nor even for human friendship. And the 



REUNION ON HIGH. 99 



hereafter itself was not the next state of existence, 
but one next succeeding a long waiting for the 
judgment day. 

Now, however, in many quarters, this is changed. 
The creeds still stand, and still declare those doc- 
trines, the names of which are election, reproba- 
tion, and salvation by faith alone, but they stand 
like the deserted columns of some ancient temple 
from which priest and people have departed. The 
builders would not pull down the structure they 
had raised, and they left it to itself. So with the 
theology of two generations ago. It was then the. 
mignty building which strong minds had erected. 
To-day it stands, but is no longer pointed to with 
the old pride. 

Men are coming now to believe in an immediate 
resurrection, and that hereafter, as here, "the tree 
will be known by its fruits." They do not speak 
at the tomb of an endless slumber, but of a new 
life. They do not say, "he is dead, and awaits, 
in the grave, the judgment day ; " but they say, 
"he is not here, he is risen. " 



ioo LIFE ETERNAL. 



The question to be pondered is this, — is the fu- 
ture life a reunion, as well as a reawakening ? It is 
perfectly right to consider it. Indeed, it must be 
considered. The event of death is often occurring, 
and all have a right to ask whether the sadness so 
often falling upon thet^i is temporal or eternal, 
whether they part to meet, or part and have no 
more of this world's friendships. As one has la- 
mented : — 

"This is the burden of the heart, 
The burden that it always bore ; 
We live to love, we meet to part ; 
And part to meet on earth no more ; 
We clasp each other to the heart, 
And part to meet on earth no more." 

The poet utters the thought of the ages. Isaac 
at Abraham's death-scene, and Jacob at Isaac's, 
the children of Jacob receiving the last blessing, 
David crying " My son, Absalom, would God I had 
died for thee ; " and myriads before and myriads 
since utter the same thought. In every language 
of earth it has been spoken, and spoken from the 
heart. 



RE UNION ON HIGH. j t 

Has God heard, and how has he answered? Do 
men die to be gathered to their own, or to be 
parted forever ? 

The burden of proof in this matter is really 
upon those who would deny such re-assembling of 
friends. And it is put there by the simple fact of 
the friendships of this world. Humanity comes 
into the world, as a rule, amid most congenial sur- 
roundings, and makes friends from the very out- 
set. This fact helps to predicate the other. The 
road which leads eastward to-day will lead thither 
to-morrow. What experience has proved to be 
the best way of treating a particular disease in 
twenty cases, reason leads all to try in the twenty- 
first. 

If reason may not do so, if the continuity of 
Divine Order may not be taken for granted, noth- 
ing can be done. The physician will not dare to 
prescribe, lest yesterday's balm be to-day's poi- 
son. He will not dare to enter his vehicle, or to 
partake of food, or even to step out of his house, 
lest gravitation and cohesion may have perished. 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



So goes the argument heavenward. One may- 
have ridden through many towns, and of all these 
has never found one which is a mere muster of 
strangers ; but, on the contrary, in every place the 
people will be found banded together in the sup- 
port of churches, and schools, and stores, and 
united still more closely in family relations. Ride 
a month, a year, a life-time, and the same will be 
seen. And this is sufficient. 

If one would prove that friendship did not out- 
last the earthly life, he would have to show that 
cordial friendship was a thing accidental, unim- 
portant, and only useful for a time. And this no 
man can show, for he knows that it is the main- 
spring of human progress, and divides the good 
from the brutal and the savage. Nay, the love 
which unites men with the Lord, knits them to 
each other; and the one would fall with the other, 
as trees fall when roots are severed. 

While this is enough, it is not all. The Lord 
does not leave to human reason to work unaided, 
lest it err. And He has given much teaching on 



REUNION ON HIGH. 



103 



this point in the Holy Word, to which attention 
will now be given. 

The phrase employed by the patriarchs has been 
noticed. It implies all. Found in the Holy Word, 
it promises all. It might well be on men's lips 
when they fade and when they die: "I am gath- 
ered to my people." 

Moreover, David fasted and wept while his child 
lived ; but when he perceived that it was dead, he 
washed his face and worshipped God. " For," 
said he, "while the child was yet alive, I fasted 
and wept : for I said, Who can tell whether God 
will be gracious to me, that the child may live? 
But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can 
I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but 
he shall not return to me." So should all say, 
believing in the reunion hereafter, and in the 
need of preparing for it. 

The tenderest friendship spoken of in Scripture 
is that of the Lord and His disciples. That He 
laid down His life for them and other men, and 
otherwise exhibited the fulness of the Divine 



104 



LIFE ETERNAL, 



Love, is known. It is true, on the other hand, 
that the disciples hardly believed in Him, that at 
the last trial they forsook Him, and that they were 
infinitely His inferiors. Yet He loved them, and 
they Him. And the tie was not to break, nor 
would the separation be perpetual. " I go to pre- 
pare a place for you; and if I go and prepare a 
place for you, I will come again and receive you 
unto myself; that where I am ye may be also!' 
"Father, I will that they also whom thou hast 
given me be with me where I am!' 

And He left with them and their successors full 
faith that they would finally be together with Him. 
Thus Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, " God hath 
not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation 
by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that 
whether we wake or sleep, we should live together 
with Him!' 

Of that blessed reunion of the disciples with 
their Master, a glimpse is given in the closing por- 
tions of the Gospels. He had died, and had risen 
again. They were thinking Him lost, and were 



REUNION ON HIGH. 



i°5 



trembling in a hiding place. Then He made Him- 
self known, saying, " Peace be unto you." Thomas 
doubted, not having been present at first, but he 
soon believed, and cried out in joy and reverence, 
"My Lord and my God/' 

One more glimpse at the view as seen from the 
other side. In the Book of Revelation it is said 
that an angel showed to John the great city, and 
that John fell at his feet to worship him. But he pre- 
vented it, saying, " I am thy fellow-servant, and of 
thy brethren the prophets." A stranger was not 
sent, nor one of a different character, but a fellow- 
worker, a close sympathizer. 

There are means to go much beyond this, but 
let this suffice. One caution, however, is to be 
made lest a vital principle underlying the whole 
matter should be overlooked. If friendships for 
good people are founded, not upon the good that 
is in them, but upon mere accidents of body or 
possession only, they have no abiding principle. 
Hereafter, nothing will be hidden. Each will 
show his dislike of another's honesty, or humility, 



io6 LIFE ETERNAL, 



or faith, and this will put a barrier between them. 
Friendships founded on a greater or less degree of 
common aim and common love are those which 
will last — friendships which seek good, not evil, 
and which seek the benefit, not the destruction, of 
others. Such only, to be sure, are real and true, 
but those of another sort are often seen. 

It was not by accident that Peter, and James, 
and the rest were chosen, but by the design of 
Infinite Wisdom. It was not by accident that any 
are born of one nation, and state, and family, but 
of the same design. On this all should rest. The 
bands, grown strong in the companionship of years, 
are not to be rudely snapped, save as any do it by 
their own recklessness. 

When children become of age they should look 
to the Lord for guidance, and their parents should 
cease to exercise authority over them ; but they 
should still be the intimate friends of their chil- 
dren, having an accurate knowledge of their char- 
acters, and being as desirous as ever to assist them. 
Brothers and sisters, too, were given for a wise 



RE UNION ON HIGH. j 7 



purpose, and this can be subserved by prolonging 
the tie beyond childhood. 

Like the patriarchs, men of to-day are to be 
gathered to their people; unless they so affect 
their lives with evil as to prevent a union hereafter 
with the good. Then they will find new friends, 
but of another sort. The poor prodigal left his 
friends to seek others. He found, and was no 
longer an honored son ; he became a slave and a 
swineherd. But he came to himself, and the same 
kind friend, his father, received him again with 
joy. May all departures from true friends result 
only in perceiving the desirableness of returning, 
that so all may find their own both here and here- 
after. 

The question as to the recognition of friends, 
which many ask with some anxiety, is not one re- 
quiring so full a treatment as they may suppose. 
To be in doubt upon the subject is to be in an 
obscurity which simple trust in the Lord will illu- 
mine. For to suppose that there is any impossi- 
bility or even difficulty in recognizing friends on 



108 LIFE ETERNAL. 

high is to suppose that the Divine Love has failed in 
an important part of its work of blessing mankind. 
And to have a firm trust in the Lord is to be sure 
that He who doeth all things well will not leave 
men when they shall have gone hence to look 
upon those they once knew, and hesitate and fear 
to address them. 

Note, however, that while the spiritual body 
may not have precisely the countenance of the 
earthly, — for sickness, age, or weariness will not 
mar the face hereafter, — yet that the character, 
which gives the light to the eyes, the grace to the 
smile, and the individuality to the whole contour, 
will remain, and will have perfect manifestation in 
every part and movement of the spiritual body. 

Men treasure in memory the face of dear ones, 
not as they were last seen in death, but as they 
were in health and joyful energy. This recollec- 
tion itself prevents them from disappointment 
through expecting to recognize the glorified by 
any marks which care or suffering may have made, 
and which resurrection will have taken away. 



REUNION ON HIGH. j 09 



But it should be remembered that it will not be 
left for two to approach each other and scrutinize 
countenances. The mind of the departing is filled 
with thoughts of those gone before. They are, as 
it were, about his bedside. When he wakes, there- 
fore, and finds them present, all anxiety as to rec- 
ognizing them, if ever it was felt, is forgotten. 

Again, those of the other side, awaiting the 
coming of a loved one, would leave him no time 
to doubt, by making themselves instantly known. 
Said one not long since, "My mother, who died 
years ago, seems of late always by me. I can 
think of nothing else. What does it mean ? " He 
soon learned what it meant, when, with what seemed 
a sudden illness, he was taken hence. 

Perhaps the doubt as to recognition may have 
some ground in what occurred with our Lord after 
His resurrection, when neither Mary at the tomb 
nor the two disciples upon the way to Emmaus 
knew Him at first. But this would be a false in- 
ference. The Lord could then be seen only by 
the spiritual sight, and it was for good reason that 



IIO LIFE ETERNAL. 



He did not at once give a full recognition of Him- 
self to those still in the flesh. Had they passed, 
however, into the other life, would they not have 
known Him even more certainly than the evil 
spirit who said, " I know Thee who thou art?" 

" Alas for him who never sees 
The sun shine through his cypress trees ; 
Who hopeless lays his dead away, 
Nor looks to see the breaking day 
Across the mournful marbles play ; 
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith, 
The truth to flesh and sense unknown, 
That life is ever lord of death, 
And love can never lose its own." 

So believing, we can say with Paul, that "whether 
we wake or sleep, we shall live together with Him/' 
— gathered to our people and to Him, and God 
shall wipe aw r ay all tears from our eyes. 



THE BIBLE IN HEAVEN. 

"Forever, O Lord, thy Word is settled in heaven" — 
Psalm cxix. 89. 

r I ^HE Bible has held a high place in the hearts of 
millions of people who have found their light 
and consolation therein, in the minds of thousands 
who have suffered persecution rather than surrender 
it to the fires kindled by Romish priests, and in the 
thoughts of millions now, an increasing number in 
foreign lands, if not in our own, who look to it for 
guidance, encouragement, and warning, and who 
are never disappointed. 

There are, to be sure, disquieting suggestions, 
lately brought to view, to the general effect that 
the Books of Moses were fraudulently produced, 
long after the times they describe, for temporary 
purposes of priestly aggrandizement, and that the 
Gospels had their origin long after the events they 



H2 LIFE ETERNAL. 



narrate, and when all means of attaining historic 
accuracy were lost. 

In reply to these allegations, it would be easy to 
show their unreasonableness, and their demand 
that mere credulity should take the place of rational 
faith. Just as to that theory of the creation of the 
universe which sets aside the Creator and His 
plan, men are obliged to assent, if at all, against 
every rational consideration; so here they are 
compelled to suppose that a gigantic imagination 
has wrought where reason would say that it finds 
a record of actual occurrences. 

If one should come and say to-day, "There may 
have been a George Washington somewhere, but 
the idea that he was the father of his country, was 
simply imagined by the historians, and the fact of 
a revolution in which he earned this title, is wholly 
doubtful," the answer would probably be made, " I 
cannot be so credulous as to believe you against 
all the facts, of which the very existence of the 
American nation is chief." And so it might be 
said of Christianity and Judaism, that their very 




THE BIBLE IN HE A VEJV. j j 3 



existence is irrefutable evidence of their having 
had the source their records describe. 

Such replies, with consideration also of the plain 
facts that the Bible is spiritual and Divine light, 
illuminating with a foresight all its own the things 
not within the range of human foreknowledge, 
sufficiently vindicate the Book as a guide in the 
present life, but they do not touch the supreme 
point, which is the existence of a deeper meaning 
in this Book, indicating at once its place above 
human compositions, and showing how it is found 
and read in heaven. 

This is a point which should have interest far 
beyond its value as a matter of argument in the 
question of the authenticity of the Word. 

One and another go out of this life, resigning 
earthly cares which have been well performed, 
and passing on to the restful life on high. All 
circles are sure to be broken within a short time, 
and the Lord alone knows who will be the first to 
go. Men, therefore, seek not only to be prepared 
in spirit for such a change, and to do all they now 



! 1 4 LIFE E TERNAL. 



do as if it were their last duty on earth, but they 
also naturally think how the future life will be or- 
dered, and what of home it will furnish. 

This Bible they love, if it be there, will help to 
make the other life a home. If it be not found 
there, if, like a dictionary or an atlas, its use ter- 
minates with this life, — if, in fact, they have then 
to learn a new religion from new oracles, they will 
at the least lose a great treasure. It may be a real 
world ; friends may be there ; but this is not enough 
for those who have come to lean upon this sacred 
and unfailing staff. They want to know that the 
"Word is settled in heaven. " 

In making plain that it is there, one might pro- 
ceed in two ways. He might go to the Word 
itself and see that it says this of itself, and else- 
where refers to itself as known in heaven, — as 
when angels came to men to cite its prophecies 
and indicate their fulfilment ; or one might look 
at it in its own nature and see that it rises to the 
plane of the immortal life, and that, as a man has 
within his body an immortal spirit, so this book 



THE BIBLE IN HE A VEN, j j 5 



has within its literal meaning one which is such as 
the angels would read and delight in. 

In order to consider this latter suggestion, it is 
necessary first to note what change of thought 
occurs with one who leaves this world. 

When a person has left the natural body, he is 
in a spiritual body, and this has organs of sense, so 
that he sees, hears, and touches. But these organs, 
like the rest of his body, are spiritual. He there- 
fore does not hear what is said on earth, nor see 
what is done there, as they of the earth do not 
know what is doing in heaven through sensuous 
knowledge. 

The plain effect of this change from natural 
sights and sounds to spiritual sights and sounds, is 
to lay away into quiescence the memory of the 
sights and sounds of this world, and to lift the 
thought above natural objects. Those who go out 
from this life cease to concern themselves about 
the bodies and bodily affairs of those left behind, 
and rise to be concerned only about the working 
of their minds in regard to the most essential 



! 1 6 LIFE E TERNAL. 



things. In the first state after death there is 
connection with all the thoughts of those who re- 
main, but those who have become angels then 
concern themselves, with loving care and protec- 
tion, only about the deeper purposes and affections. 

They know not the particular work men are 
doing so much as the spirit in which they do it. 
They are concerned not to know how much wealth 
they accumulate, or what new clothes they pro- 
cure, but they dwell near to the hearts of men, and 
feel their essential emotions. 

To such persons, so raised in thought as not to 
heed earthly sights and sounds, a Scripture wholly 
about this earth would lose its power. Whatever 
it might have been to them once, if it continued on 
the level they formerly occupied, it would no longer 
give spiritual quickening to their thoughts. It is 
not meant to assert that the Word in its literal 
meaning is wholly such as to be called earthly, but 
it is clear that if it be partly so, the remark holds 
true. 

Angels have no longer to do with Egypt, with 



THE BIBLE IN HE A VEN. 



n 7 



Babylon, nor with Jerusalem ; and any reference 
to them in their Bibles would be dark. So would 
it be with all references to earthly towns or earthly 
acts, such as planting the ground, or carrying on 
worship by sacrifices, or vestments, or erecting 
temples. 

The question then is, Is the Word capable of 
transfer to heaven? Can it lay off its garment of 
earthly history and scenery, and remain with those 
who go into the world of spirit? If yes can be 
intelligently answered to this question, the Divine- 
ness of the Word, however it may outwardly par- 
take of Jewish thought, is forever established. 
Such answer must of course be given and received 
in freedom and reason. Not otherwise can true 
faith be founded or increased. 

But the question, Is there an inner meaning in 
the Holy Word, one above earthly persons and 
places? hardly needs argument. The outer is so 
transparent that the inner is often brought to view. 
All through the history of Christianity an inner 
meaning has been known, or at least felt. "Which 



n8 LIFE ETERNAL. 

things are an allegory/' said Paul, of the story of 
Abraham. Among the Christian Fathers, Origen, 
the most voluminous of the Fathers in the inter- 
pretation of Scripture, dwelt much on the same 
thought, and so explained, or sought to explain, 
the incidents of the Mosaic history, discerning 
clearly, for instance, that leprosy was a type of 
spiritual uncleanness, and that all the laws in re- 
gard to it had a bearing on the men of his day. 

This too was dimly seen by a class commonly 
called mystics, who formed a line extending down 
to a recent date. They did not have the perfect 
rule of interpretation, but they clearly perceived 
that our Lord's words bore a double significance, 
that Rome might be the Scriptural Babylon, and 
that the destruction of the world might mean the 
end of the Church in corruption. 

Reverent scholars at the present time, studying 
the use of symbols among ancient nations, are led 
to see that the same symbols introduced into the 
Holy Word must also bear interpretation. The 
Garden of Eden, for instance, with its two trees, 



THE BIBLE IN HE A VEN. 



119 



— the one good, the other dangerous, — its serpent, 
and its cherubim at the gate, is seen to be in the 
Word, as in the traditions of various nations, a 
symbolic account ; only here, under Divine inspir- 
ation, it correctly assigns the cause of the Fall to 
man's abuse of his free agency. 

Every commentary of any standing contains 
teaching about symbolism, especially when treat- 
ing of the prophetic portions of the Word. 

The difference between this historic belief and 
the one held in the New Church is only one of 
degree. While others are sure that they see a 
deeper meaning here and there, some see it all the 
way. They are led upon careful investigation to 
believe that, after a long, pure life of study into 
such things as prepared the way, Swedenborg was 
led to see the fact that a connected spiritual mean- 
ing runs through the Word, which, by a simple 
principle of interpretation, may be brought forth 
to the devout mind. 

This is, by the way, the course of progress in all 
knowledge. A principle like that of the inter- 



120 LIFE ETERNAL. 



relation of the heavenly bodies is first dimly seen, 
and assertions are made by various astronomers, 
causing gradual increase of knowledge, till, at 
length, in His own time, the Lord raises up a man 
like La Place, who brings out the laws of the whole 
system, and shows at once its unity and its Divine 
authorship. 

And so, in regard to the Word, did reverent 
men point out its transparent places till it pleased 
the Lord to give further light, and to show how 
the Word has an inmost as well as an outmost, and 
how it is in heaven as well as on earth. 

This general thought, once seen, is perfectly 
clear, and yet men could not see it in its strength 
till they were taught. Here is the Word, and 
here are human souls. As was above explained, 
these souls are to pass above this earthly plane of 
life, and its sights and sounds, and are to lose their 
interest in them, but keep and deepen their inter- 
est in what with them is spiritual. When they 
have made this change, they will find the Word 
still a well of water of life. 



THE BIBLE IN HE A VEN. T 2 1 



As read in heaven, it is the same book; but, 
instead of the names of places and people, it speaks 
of spiritual things. Egypt, Canaan, Assyria, are 
not read there, but instead the regions of the mind. 
Wars with Philistines are not mentioned there, but 
combats with false teachings. The achievements 
of kings become the successes of the soul in the 
progress upward, and the crimes of men mentioned 
here relate the dangers of the soul. 

Let it be noticed, that, when only a single part 
of speech receives this change, when only the 
nouns give place to their heavenly corresponding 
realities, the Word, wonderful to say, has risen a 
whole degree in the ascent of wisdom, and en- 
throned itself in heaven. 

These symbols, moreover, are not arbitrary 
signs which must be learned one by one, as a man 
would learn the words of an unknown tongue, but 
they are the very order of the universe, by which 
every material object has its spiritual original, 
which is the means of its creation and of the pres- 
ervation of its existence. 



122 LIFE ETERNAL. 

For instance, the Holy City, New Jerusalem, is 
a representative of the Church on earth, because a 
heavenly city is a collection of people of the 
Church, that is, of angels. And as everything 
surrounding them there answers to their hearts, so, 
when the same thing is described in the Holy 
Word in earthly language, we can read prophecies 
and lessons as to the Church among men, and can 
find them in every word as to wall, or gates, or 
street. 

Some of the imagery of the Word is of infernal 
origin, such as the horrible beasts which sought to 
destroy; but here the principle of interpretation 
is the same, namely, to change the nouns to what 
they signify, and read of things spiritual. 

Journeys then become progressions in wisdom 
and love, and all the march of the Israelites is the 
story of regeneration, while the story of their con- 
quest of the land of Canaan becomes that of the 
acquisition of the heavenly powers and blessings 
which the Lord designs for all, if they will do their 
part. 



THE BIBLE IN HE A VEN. j 2 $ 



After this, it will not surprise any one to be told 
that not only has the Word this spiritual meaning, 
but that it rises still higher, and treats of our Lord 
himself. Not only does the Exodus, for example, 
describe the course of a regenerating soul, but it 
also tells, when understood in a still deeper mean- 
ing, how the Lord glorified His Humanity, and so 
became the King of kings. It does this because 
there is a correspondence not only between matter 
and spirit, but between spirit and what is higher 
and Divine. 

And it is scarcely necessary to add that a knowl- 
edge of the spiritual character of the Word does 
not at all diminish one's love of the letter. For 
this is the basis of all the rest. Hebraistic it may 
be and must be in its expressions; it may speak 
thus of things like Divine wrath, which have only 
an apparent and not a real existence ; it may allude 
to crimes which can fill one only with horror; but 
it is still the Word of God. And in its more trans- 
parent places men can see its beauty and its power. 

In studying it, however, the mind should not 



I2 4 LIFE ETERNAL. 



dwell upon its outward meaning in ignorance or 
neglect of the inward; but, as one would treat 
men remembering their immortal souls, so here he 
would seek for "the spirit and the life," and will 
then surely find it. 

Going hence, men may not take their earthly 
possessions, but they shall not part with the Bible. 
They should not cling now too closely to what is 
earthly, but they may cling to this. In the life 
beyond they may forget their fields, but they shall 
not forget their Bible, and in the light of the coun- 
tenance of our Lord may they be permitted then, 
as now, to find here the daily lessons of truth. 
Blessed be thy mercy, O Lord, that "forever thy 
Word is settled in heaven, " for "in thy Word do 
we hope." 






THE HEAVENWARD CALL. 

"Be of good comfort \ rise; he calleth thee." — Mark 
x. 49. 

TTOLY Week commemorates the crowning acts 
of the Lord's life on earth. The mode of dat- 
ing by the moon employed by the Jews has been 
preserved by them, and leaves no doubt that Chris- 
tians celebrate these events on the very anniver- 
saries of them. The passover, nineteen centuries 
ago, yes, thirty centuries ago, as now, occurred at 
the full moon, and the same moon which at her 
full in Holy Week mounts the heavens, looked 
down, long years ago, when a little company met 
and ate the Passover, then listened to words of 
comfort from their leader, who gave them a simple 
service of communion which they were to keep in 
remembrance of Him, and then passed with Him 
forth from the city gate and over into the Garden 



T2 6 LIFE ETERNAL. 



of Gethsemane. The same moon witnessed Him 
upon His knees in that garden, and the soldiers 
approaching with their arms. She stood over that 
fated city when He was tortured and unjustly tried ; 
and when in early morning He was condemned to 
die in agony, she was sinking out of sight. 

When she rose again on the next night, the 
crowd was still, the soldiers awestruck with what 
they had seen, and the cross unburdened. From 
her high station she watched the tomb, till again 
she descended into the West. 

Once more she rose, and, ere she sank again, the 
tomb was empty, from the mourning faces the tears 
were wiped away, He had swallowed up death in 
victory. 

The point to which attention is now called is an 
incident which happened a little before the events 
just referred to, when the Lord was on His way 
up to Jerusalem, and when He and His disciples 
were leaving the town of Jericho for the last part of 
the journey which would end in apparent defeat 
but real victory. 



THE HEAVENWARD CALL, 12 j 



A man sat by the wayside, blind and poor. He 
had become well known to the people, by sitting 
near the gate on the road from this town Jericho to 
Jerusalem, and his only resource was to beg. 

The suggestion that he in any way represents 
others will seem at first thought to have no foun- 
dation, but it is worthy of reflection. 

Who knows all that he would like to know, or 
ought to know about the Lord, and the Word, and 
the duties of life here and hereafter? To how 
many does this book shine with the radiance of its 
spiritual meaning instead of being a mere history 
or a collection of sayings having the flavor of antiq- 
uity ? Who is there that knows clearly and at 
once what is right in every case that arises to him? 
Who understands clearly about the other life ? 
Especially, are there those who do not well know 
who the Lord is or what He is or where, who can- 
not see His hand in the circumstances which sur- 
round them or in the experiences which befall 
them, and who do not understand what the Re- 
demption was and is ; or are there those who can- 



LIFE ETERNAL, 



not understand in what way and sense He was the 
manifestation of God ? 

Spiritual blindness ! and that perhaps wide spread 
and of long standing. There is not one who can 
fail to see in himself something of ignorance ; and 
when he looks out upon the world and hears the 
doubts going back and forth, — the denials of Di- 
vine facts, the honest declarations of ignorance,— 
he cannot fail to see an analogy between this blind- 
ness and that of the man of Jericho. Alas that a 
poet should say with truth of himself, sorrowing 
blindly for his friend : — 

" But what am I ? 
An infant crying in the night : 
An infant crying for the light : 
And with no language but a cry." 

This blindness or lack of understanding in re- 
spect to spiritual matters is not typified by the man 
of Jericho, if it be reckless of the consequences, and 
cries out, "I see, and what I do not see is not." 
So far as men make their lack of understanding 
the limit of knowledge, so far as they say to others 



THE HEAVENWARD CALL. I2 g 



"our horizon is the world's end," they are not in 
the attitude to be helped. Yet, incredible as it 
may seem, there is much of this, and it is just as 
if the blind Bartimaeus should cry out and say, 
"What do you say you see? One who can cure? 
A way up to Jerusalem ? you are wholly mistaken, 
for I see nothing of the sort. What vain imagina- 
tion, what superstition, my eyes are better, and 
the only good eyes ; my place is higher than Jeru- 
salem ; your Saviour you only dream of! " 

He was not such. He begged, because he 
knew himself miserable. Without sight he knew 
he was, and when he heard the others tell what 
they saw, he was not scornful, he was not angry, 
he listened and sought to know what they knew. 
His attitude perfectly represents an ignorance that 
is teachable, and therefore hopeful. 

And he placed himself on the way to the Holy 
City! It was not by the path to the desert that 
he sat, thinking to go out there if he could. The 
road he lingered by ended at the Temple. The 
people who passed him were singing as they 



1 30 



///••/•• /■/'/■'A'X.i/. 



went, the son;;:; ol /ion, and he hoard with loin; 

Ing, 

It is the host position inon r.m take BO Fai .is 
they .no conscious ol any obscurity <>i mind, 01 ol 
any lack ol nearness to the Lord. They isiin not h 
ing by concealing, they lose im measurably by ^\^ 
nying thcii need« Waiting patiently with ears in 
ton:, they will learn th.it all they need is at hand 
when some one says, u Jesus of Nazareth passeth 
Im " They cannot call him Lord and iM.isioi.it 
first; He is. to thom, only Jesus of Nazareth) a 
charactei in history. And it they decide not to 
call to Him, He will pass by to dayand to morrow 
and :>^ on, and always be to thom .1 mere charac 
tei in history, the greatest o( men, but not the 
Savioui . 

But let them remembei unto what they were 
made, by whom and with what wonderful skill, 
and let thom not love then blindness, and say, 4 * 1 
see" when they grope in darkness, N01 lot thom 
delay, 1 et the angels speak through them, let 
the prayers foi them ol those who low thom he 



THE HEAVENWARD CALL. I3I 



heeded, let their cry go forth, "have mercy on 
me." 

What was the answer? A rebuke. Not from 
Him, but from those who applauded Him to-day, 
and would throng the street to cry "crucify Him" 
ere the week closed. 

There are places to-day in which this cry would 
be rebuked, or passed by as childish. The rebuke 
of the people was well meant, but it was heartless 
indeed. They wanted no pause for beggars. They 
"charged him that he should hold his peace." 

What shall be done if the good purpose does not 
instantly meet with full response, if when men try 
to come to church they find the people cold, the 
minister not understanding their wants or even 
denying their good sense? There is but one an- 
swer. Heaven and earth must be moved to make 
them safe and happy. Theirs are immortal souls, 
fashioned by the Lord of the Universe, marred, it 
may be, by their own hands but not destroyed, 
groping blindly and feebly while the sun in heaven 
shines in all his strength. Let them remember 



1 32 LIFE ETERNAL. 



that it is written "Before they call I will answer, 
and while they are yet speaking I will hear," and 
let them do right, as Bartimaeus did. " He cried 
the more a great deal, ' Thou son of David, have 
mercy on me.'" 

There can be no failure where the purpose is 
strong ; and, if it be a true purpose, misunder- 
standings will not break, but will only chasten it. 
They will cry out the more. Mark, that intense 
study is not the best way to reach the cure of igno- 
rance about the Lord. If one but goes into his 
closet to the Lord, the Lord shows who He is 
and opens the eyes to see Him. Such is His 
power over all obstructing influences that they 
cannot oppose when He is before one in answer to 
his cry. 

At the second appeal the Lord stood still, and 
commanded the man to be called. This is the op- 
portunity of all, and joyfully the church should 
second it, saying, "Be of good comfort, rise; He 
calleth thee." 

It is a solemn question for every one, minister 



THE HEAVENWARD CALL. j^ 



or layman, to answer to himself, — is this my an- 
swer to those of whose needs I learn? do I com- 
fort them ? do I exhort them ? do I tell them of 
the Lord's call to them to come and be healed ? 
Without attempting to answer for the past, let this 
duty of encouraging and of being encouraged be 
urged upon all. 

" Be of good comfort." Are any in some sorrow, 
the means of assuagement are at hand. They may 
learn that those they deem lost are only gone be- 
fore, that the errors they mourn may be repented 
of, that the doubts which trouble them are not of 
the Lord's sending, and are only phases of thought 
through which they can easily see their way if 
they make the attempt. The evils of the world 
are of men's making, the weaknesses of mankind 
are not a necessity and may be overcome. Ap- 
proach once the Lord, and all will be in process of 
cure. "Be of good comfort." 

But there is more than this. " Rise." This is 
indispensable. One must move in this matter. 
Human beings cannot be used as machinery. It 



1 34 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



was a sad mistake of the old theologians that some 
men were saved by irresistable grace and others 
condemned by unavoidable wrath. Men's desti- 
nies are in their own hands. The whole Scripture 
was set aside by this doctrine of unconditional elec- 
tion and reprobation. "Come unto me, all ye," is 
the bidding; "look unto me, and be ye saved all 
the ends of the earth." And the way to move is 
plain. 

Rising means going up and away from whatever 
darkens or enfeebles. It is the effort to reform. 
It is yielding to the saving impulse of the Lord 
within. In all the decisions which arise to be 
made, it is choosing the better part. And this 
should be done because He calleth. Earnestly to 
seek salvation for one's own sake is not ennobling. 
The appeal to men to repent for fear they will suf- 
fer is not strong. Right is to be done because it 
is right. All are to pray as well for others as for 
themselves. They are to seek the Lord, not merely 
to obtain a token of His good-will, but to become 
in heart and mind and life the men and women 



THE HEAVENWARD CALL, 



135 



He intended them to be, strong, true, patient, 
affectionate. 

To all this He calleth, not to mere bliss, not to 
eternal idle contemplation of one's own happiness 
and others' misery, but to earnest work in any 
calling, without worldly ambition, without over- 
indulgence of the body, with a noble love of the 
Master and the fellow-workers. 

In a life of this sort there is progress. None 
seeks healing for the purpose of going back to stay 
where he was, but to leave that behind. He would 
see the other end of the road at the beginning of 
which he has lingered long. There is a Jericho 
here, the first stage of life. There is a Jerusalem 
there, the heavenly home. And men cannot see 
it without eyes. 

It is a vital truth that Jericho is so low in the 
valley that no one can see Jerusalem. He who 
abides all his life at a great distance from the Lord, 
is preparing himself so to abide in the other life. 
If, on the other hand, he has sought to know the 
Lord for himself, has found Him, and has come 



136 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



to realize His presence day unto day, he dies and 
lives again in His presence, he will love to see 
Him, he will be with the Lord where He is, in 
the light of His countenance he will find peace. 

This is all set down in the story. When he 
heard the call, Bartimaeus rose, casting away his 
garment, "and came to Jesus." He did that which 
clearly represents what all should do. Casting 
away the garment means a change of life, — the 
putting away of the tokens of misery for those of 
joy. Bartimaeus was to have a new calling, and a 
more worthy one ; the rags of his begging he aban- 
doned. 

And he went to Jesus. It was but a step, but 
he must take it. All must go that step. All must 
elect themselves to grace. Being rational human 
beings, and not machines, they must act in free- 
dom according to reason. There can be no per- 
suading and no threatening. He sins who, in 
dealing with mature people, does not reason with 
them in regard to religious things. He cannot 
take this step for them. They must rise and go 



THE HEAVENWARD CALL. I37 



to Jesus; with the aid, the encouragement of 
others, but not by others' power, but by their 
own. 

"And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way: thy 
faith hath made thee whole/' This was the end 
he sought. It came to him without fail. The 
Lord's power is infinite. A very slight exercise 
of it made this man well, and makes myriads well. 
The Lord withholds it only for their sake ; indeed 
He exerts so much of it as will keep them free to 
choose, as will prevent their being overwhelmed 
of evil, and as will turn them to Himself; but, 
out of His wise love for them, He does not add 
the grain more which would force them from their 
birthright as free agents. This He exercises only 
when they seek Him, and so act as of themselves. 
Then He "pours water upon him that is thirsty, 
and floods upon the dry ground. " " Immediately 
he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the 
way." So he saw Jerusalem, that had long been 
blind. So the weakest may be strong to follow 
Him, the day-spring from on high which giveth 



I3 8 LIFE ETERNAL. 



light to them that sit in darkness and in the 
shadow of death. 

It is the solemn question of the hour, Shall Holy 
Week close and leave one at Jericho ? Shall all 
not go up with their Lord ? If any are already 
outwardly united with them that seek to follow 
the Lord, let them make it a season of greater sur- 
render of self to Him. If they are not outwardly 
united with them that go, shall they not reverently 
and joyfully receive His mark upon their foreheads 
and drink of the cup He drank of? 

No one can answer these questions for another, 
nor can ministers answer for their people. As it 
is, pointing to the way which goeth up from all 
that is unworthy to what is glorious, from this 
present weakness to the kingdom prepared from 
the foundation of the world, one can only say to an- 
other, ''Jesus of Nazareth passeth by ; be of good 
comfort, rise ; He calleth thee" 



THE HEAVENLY PREPARATION. 

"Like unto men that wait for their lord" — Luke xii. 36. 

TF it were now permitted to look upon those who 
have been removed from any community to the 
other life within the last few years, and to observe 
their present conditions and surroundings, it would 
be perceived that their situations were not alike. 

Those who had been removed in infancy would 
be found to be in the charge of angels especially 
adapted to care for them, being those whose love 
of children was most earnest while they were in 
this world. There the children will be not only 
cared for, but instructed in wonderful ways, and 
they will receive all that they need to make them 
blessed forever. 

Those too who had been taken hence when in 
childhood would also be seen to be in the hands of 
wise and loving guardians. 



I4 o LIFE ETERNAL. 



This is known because it is written, " It is not 
the will of your Father which is in heaven that 
one of these little ones should perish," and because 
it is said that "He is not the God of the dead, but 
of the living, for all live unto Him ; " and true life, 
whether in this world or the next, implies progress 
in affection and intelligence. 

In regard to those who had made the change of 
worlds in adult life, the general remark may be 
made that they all continue to live, for the Script- 
ure applies the term everlasting to the evil as well 
as to the good ; but it does not describe the same 
future as awaiting both evil and good. 

Of those who have been taken, some may have 
been so thoroughly evil, so opposed to the princi- 
ples of an orderly life set forth in the Ten Com- 
mandments, that it was necessary for them to be at 
once restrained from injuring others. Their quality 
may have been that of those who enjoy nothing 
but selfish gratification. Such people, if they are 
in business, care more to obtain the ruin of others 
than to advance themselves ; and in social life their 



THE HE A VENL Y PRE PAR A TIOAT. j 4 T 



thought is of leading other people astray. Their 
pretended friendship lays a heavy hand upon those 
who come under their influence, and makes them 
subject to the stronger will. And when they go 
into the other life they seek to do likewise. 

Such persons are rare, and some communities 
may not contain them. But if there were any 
among those now referred to, they soon after death 
made their quality manifest, and it would be neces- 
sary to put them into the company of others like 
them. Such would also be their own free choice, 
and they would be placed under restraint, as was 
necessary in this world, lest they should go on to 
grow worse, which can no longer be permitted 
them. 

The good hereafter gladly perceive the control 
of the Heavenly Father; the evil do not acknowl- 
edge it gladly, but they do and must submit to it. 
"If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there ; if I 
make my bed in hell, behold thou art there/' 

Besides these, there are in the class of those 
recently departed, undoubtedly a large proportion 



142 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



of people whose lives in this world were of a mixed 
quality. They may have felt kindly towards some, 
and vengefully towards others. They may have 
had some good habits and some evil ones. They 
may have been interested at times in learning truth 
of every degree, and at others they may have been 
worldly, and may have weakened rather than 
strengthened their minds. 

If, when such were in this world, the question 
had been raised, Are you ready for the Lord to 
come, are you ready to go hence? they would have 
answered, No; we wish to get over this quarrel 
with a neighbor and become reconciled to all men. 
We wish to give up this vile habit of self-indul- 
gence, and become all pure. We wish to cease to 
be foolish, and become truly wise and sensible. 
We wish to learn to love to be with good people, 
and to overcome our desire to be with evil people 
in evil places. We wish to be able to look on 
riches without envy, on beauty without impurity 
of thought, on afflictions submissively. No ; we 
must not go now ; all this and more we must do 



THE HE A VENL V PRE PAR A TION. j 43 



before we shall be ready to go where the hidden 
shall be revealed. 

Yet they went, and went as they were; and the 
infinite love and wisdom of the Lord have been 
occupied since their departure, as before it, in 
seeking to bring them to be of one quality, not 
fond of the good to-day and of the evil to-morrow, 
nor of wisdom to-day and of foolishness to-morrow, 
but of one nature, that they may have some abid- 
ing-place, either among the blessed free or the 
pitied and restrained, as may be fitting for them. 

At the present stage of human history, it needs 
but a glance to see that they are the large class, 
including the most of those who do not go to 
church at all, and all those who go from motives of 
fashion or curiosity. 

They are not preparing for the Lord, nor are 
they making a continued effort to become prepared. 
Serious moments they have, especially when they 
are wrought upon by startling events, but they 
make at best only a temporary use of them. A 
while they turn to go onward, and presently lin- 



144 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



ger, and look back, and anon are travelling down- 
ward again, forgetting that a wasted hour is an 
irrevocable hour. 

In the same class, though far removed, are those 
who, while they make a general effort to be pre- 
pared, suffer themselves to indulge hard thoughts 
occasionally, without feeling sorry for doing so ; or 
who, in business transactions, sometimes act or 
utter an untruth without repenting and making 
amends; or who indulge at rare intervals in what 
they know to be debasing, contenting themselves 
with the idea that it will not ruin them as it does 
others. 

These are double people, and in the hereafter 
there can be no doubleness. There is no company 
of those who gladly do as the Lord wills three- 
fourths of the time, and insist upon doing accord- 
ing to their own evil desires one-fourth of the 
time. That vast class, when it goes hence, must 
divide. It is the teaching of the account of the 
sheep and goats, that all men, departing this life, 
must stand either upon the right hand or upon the 



THE HE A VENL Y PRE PARA TIOJST. 



145 



left, every one receiving according to his neigh- 
borliness or unneighborliness. 

What those who have departed in this half-pre- 
pared state may have endured ere they could lay 
aside forever the long-indulged one evil, or could 
sincerely repent of the habit of occasional and 
unmourned anger, or impurity, or profanity, no one 
knows ; but all can see that to go into the other 
world, where good is good and evil evil, and to go 
with an affection for both, is to go unprepared. 

Perfection the Lord does not expect, but He 
asks that not one moment of the earthly life be 
passed in indifference or in intentional sin. 

Is there still another class ? Were there any 
who were far removed from being of the first or 
evil sort, and who had done or tried to do their 
daily work in one great effort to be not of the 
double-minded ? Not that they made their lives a 
selfish heaven-seeking, trying to hoard goodness 
as misers hoard gold ; this would have defeated 
their object. 

But there were, doubtless, some who realized 



I4 6 LIFE ETERNAL. 

that the great purpose of the Lord in creating and 
preserving was to have them find their happiness 
in doing something as well as they could, and 
kindly and patiently. And suppose that in the 
progress of years they became so advanced upon 
this course that, if they thought in time, they 
would not do a wrong on any account, and, if 
they did not think, and failed to tell the truth or 
to be patient, they were sorry, and sought to make 
amends. And suppose that they learned to have 
a continual dependence upon the Lord, as a child 
upon its parents, and that they learned to set all 
their plans before Him, and to carry them out in 
consciousness of His presence. And suppose that 
the ruling desire of their lives came to be to know 
just what He would have them do, and to do it, or 
to suffer willingly for His sake and the sake of His 
children. 

Thus they were single in purpose, and then were 
taken. Falling asleep, they knew not when the 
cord which bound them to the flesh was loosed, 
and they woke to find themselves in the peaceful 



THE HE A VENL Y PRE PAR A TION. 



147 



company of the angels who had been expecting 
them. 

Was there any need of further trial? Had they 
any struggle to make before they could go in with 
those whose heavenly lives were of gentleness and 
truth ? Or could they come almost at once into 
the place provided ? It is written that the King 
would say to those on His right hand, "Come, ye 
blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom pre- 
pared for you from the foundation of the world." 

It is written again of the great company seen on 
Mount Zion, "These are they who follow the Lamb 
withersoever He goeth ; and in their mouth was 
found no guile, for they are without fault before 
the throne of God." 

These are they who are described in the com- 
mand, — for they are those who had obeyed its in- 
junction, — " Let your loins be girded about, and 
your lights burning ; and ye yourselves like unto 
men who wait for their lord when he will return 
from the wedding; that when he cometh and 
knocketh, they may open to him immediately." 



148 LIFE ETERNAL. 

These, and these only, are those who, not de- 
laying for further preparation, could open imme- 
diately. 

The Lord took His illustrations from the scenes 
and customs familiar to the people, and in this case 
from their wedding observances. 

At such a time, there was no religious service, 
but the ceremony included a procession from the 
house of the bride to her new home. The groom 
made preparations for going with his friends to 
her house, and left orders with his servants to 
have all things ready for the feast which would 
take place on his arrival, and to watch his coming, 
that the doors might be thrown open at once when 
the procession arrived. Considerable delay might 
be caused by the distance to be traversed, or by 
other causes, and it would be impossible for the 
master to say when he would arrive. He could 
only say that it might be in the evening, or at 
midnight, or at the cock crowing (about three 
hours later), or in the morning, and that they were 
to remain awake till he came. 



THE HEAVENWARD CALL, I49 



It is thus that the Lord does with all. His com- 
ing is intended to bring the end of watching, which 
may be sometimes long, and to inaugurate the life 
of the hereafter which, to those who are capable 
of true delight, will be like a feast for joyfulness. 

But He does not say when He will come. It 
would not do for men to know, for then their prepa- 
ration might either be done under sense of dread, 
or they might endeavor to prevent the event or to 
postpone it. He therefore does not let them know. 
Simply saying that He will surely come, and will 
come soon. He asks all to watch continually for 
Him. 

People in the East wore and still wear loose 
garments, and before they can be ready to go out 
to meet the bridegroom, or to wait upon him at 
the feast, they must gather up their garments with 
a girdle. It was necessary, therefore, in order to 
be ready, that they should have their garments 
girded up before he knocked. Their lamps also, 
being small vessels into which a wick was laid, 
needed to be filled and lighted in due season. 



l5 o LIFE ETERNAL. 



Men's loins are girded about and their lights are 
burning, if they are doing their various duties in 
an honest, affectionate, wise way, in such a way 
indeed that the Lord's will is acknowledged; so 
that, if they should see Him looking upon them as 
they work, or should have their most valued friend 
with them all the time, they would not be confused. 

The Lord sometimes comes without an instant's 
warning, or the last sickness may be such as pre- 
vents making further preparation, — and little can 
be made in an acute illness. 

The only true way is to live as if one waited for 
the master to come back from the wedding, and 
expected at any moment to hear his knock, and 
stood ready to open immediately. 

He comes in a sense every day. All opportu- 
nities of doing work, or of feeling kindly, or of 
learning wisdom, are soft knocks of His hand at 
the door of the heart, to the end that when we 
open He may enter and abide. If any be glad of 
such opportunities, they open, but if they neglect 
them, or act tardily and grudgingly, they are either 



THE HEAVENWARD CALL. 



ISI 



servants rebellious, or servants dilatory and un- 
trustworthy. 

It is only by gladly accepting Him now that 
they are made ready to accept Him then. If they 
but half accept Him now, they are but half pre- 
pared to accept, and half inclined to reject Him 
then. If, which may God forbid, they utterly re- 
fuse to open to Him now, they will utterly refuse 
then, and must be brought to some usefulness by 
coercion. 

There is no room to doubt as to the way which 
is most worthy of His children. The true way 
leads men to be much more helpful in this world, 
and it is for now and for ever the best for them. 

That blessed state of loins girded and lights 
burning is well described in a poem: — 

" If I were told that I must die to-morrow, 

That the next sun 
Which sinks should bear me past all fear and sorrow 

For any one, 
All the fight fought, all the short journey through, 

What should I do ? 



152 LIFE ETERNAL. 

I do not think that I should shrink or falter, 

But just go on, 
Doing my work, nor change nor seek to alter 

Aught that is gone ; 
But rise, and move, and love, and smile, and pray, 

For one more day. 
And lying down at night for a last sleeping, 

Say in that ear 
Which hearkens ever, ' Lord, within Thy keeping 

What should I fear ? 
And when to-morrow brings Thee nearer still, 

Do thou Thy will.' 
I might not sleep for awe ; but peaceful, tender, 

My soul would lie 
All the night long ; and when the morning splendor 

Flushed o'er the sky, 
I think that I could smile, — could calmly say, 

It is His day." 

When the Lord spake as He did, one had just 
come, saying, " Speak to my brother that he divide 
the inheritance with me." All stand in the pres- 
ence of Him before whom the hereafter is present, 
yet they are apt to remember only this world's 
interests. They must not neglect them, but they 






THE HE A VENL V PRE PARA TION. Y 5 3 



must attend to them in full consciousness that He 
is even now on His way, and will soon come and 
say, " Render an account of thy stewardship." 

" Blessed are those servants," it is written, 
"whom the Lord, when He cometh, shall find 
watching. . . . And if He shall come in the second 
watch or come in the third watch, and find them 
so, blessed are those servants. Be ye, therefore, 
ready also, for the Son of Man cometh at an hour 
when ye think not." 



IN AFFLICTION. 

" And I will cover thee with my hand while I pass by" — 
Exodus xxxiii. 22. 

HTHERE is no scene in all the history of Moses 
more pathetic than this. He had a longing 
to see the face of his God which words cannot 
express, yet he could not see it. He felt that there 
was a necessity that he should worship and pro- 
claim a visible God, yet God remained invisible. 

The Israelites had come to the mountains of 
Sinai, and had entered upon a sojourn there which 
lasted more than a year. Their leader had been 
summoned into the nearest mountain, and had 
ascended to learn the will of Him who had directed 
them to come hither. It was probable that now 
the object of the deliverance from Egypt would be 
more fully declared, and that Moses would learn 
how to extend his leadership. 



IN AFFLICTION. 



155 



A complete code of laws was indeed made 
known, and after a stay of forty days, Moses re- 
turned to put into execution the commandments 
transmitted. But meanwhile the depravity of his 
people had overcome their new hopes. Ignorant 
of this God who had led them, they well knew the 
gods of Egypt. Doubtful as to the result of the 
stay of Moses in the mountain, they turned to 
their former reliance — a molten image. 

Slowly descending with his servant Joshua, 
Moses could hear, before he could see, a tumult, 
and this soon declared its nature. A wild, brutal 
feast was going on. The people which he had left 
standing devoutly before the sacred mountain were 
at play. The leader cast the stone tablets from his 
hands, and ran in among them to expostulate and 
punish. 

The punishment was direful, but not more than 
sufficient to curb the lawlessness of the people. 
The golden calf was broken up. The sons of Levi 
ran through the camp and slew many. A sudden 
contrition fell upon them, and the world has never 



I5 6 LIFE ETERNAL. 



known a people which could be more contrite for 
a time. 

After this, some precautions were taken to obvi- 
ate a second return to idolatry. Moses took his 
tent and pitched it in a remote place, and made it 
for the time the temple of God, and hither the 
people came with awe to what they supposed to be 
the nearer presence of God ; while, over this tent, 
the pillar of bright cloud, dimly revealing the 
presence of the angels of God, abode like a crown 
of glory. 

Thus it was when Moses ascended again, bear- 
ing with him two tablets to replace those which 
had come to him from heaven, and which he had 
broken, — a token that the people were too de- 
praved to receive the law as it is in heaven. And 
as he went up, one thought seems to have been in 
his mind — his desire to see God. He probably 
believed that, had God made Himself distinctly 
visible to the people, the disaster might have been 
avoided. He undoubtedly felt within his own 
heart that weakness of faith which could easily be 






IN AFFLICTION. 



157 



remedied by an actual sight of his God. So he 
prayed for it, and said, "I beseech thee, show me 
thy glory." 

He did not say that he would go no farther with- 
out this proof, but he uttered a wish which all 
men have, and which has led many into idolatry. 
The heathen with their images, the Romanist with 
his crucifix, the Eastern Christian with his picture 
before which he daily bows, only show the desire 
of men for a visible God. 

It was not so from the first, for men had had an 
inward sense of the presence of God, and had 
rested in it. They had needed no written com- 
mandments, for the law was in their hearts. They 
saw something of the Divine imaged forth in every 
object, and would not have been strengthened by 
seeing or touching the Divine. But later, when 
human thought had lowered itself, and had begun 
to hearken to other dictates than those of inward 
perception of right, written words of precept were 
necessary and were given, and men carved statues 
to remind them of the attributes of God. 



i S 8 • LIFE ETERNAL. 



Here however they did not stop, and at length 
the precepts were disobeyed, and mere supersti- 
tious worship of idols grew out of their respect for 
symbolic forms. 

Then, as a temporary gift, came Judaism, — a 
ritual accommodated to the fallen nature of men, 
but embodying in its significance a true worship 
and life. It was the life of the angels of heaven 
brought down into a form suited to depraved men 
and women. 

But now the state of men was such that, in the 
brief interval between leaving Egypt and obtain- 
ing at Sinai the plan of the new worship, they were 
likely to fall into gross practices. And Moses was 
not so much above the people that he could resist 
the craving for a visible object of worship. "I 
beseech thee," cried he, " show me thy glory." 

What was the answer? He could see the glory 
only when it had passed. The time had not yet 
come for men to see God. Nearly fifteen hundred 
years must pass before the time should be fully 
ripe for the manifestation of God. Then, by means 



IN AFFLICTION. T s g 



of a nature born of woman, the answer to Moses' 
prayer was given. No man had seen God at any 
time; but the only-begotten Son, who is in the 
bosom of the Father, He declared Him. Veiled 
as it were in a Galilean nature, the Infinite Love 
and Wisdom were made known, and, by a process 
of temptation and purification, that veil was made 
more and more transparent till it rent from top to 
bottom, and even doubting Thomas cried out, " My 
Lord and my God." 

Some did not, some do not, see in the Lord the 
living God; but plainly He taught, "He that hath 
seen me hath seen the Father ; How sayest thou 
then, Show us the Father ?" 

Until this Incarnation, God could not be seen. 
Except when He had come down in a form on 
which they could look, He was absolutely invisi- 
ble. He might and did speak to the prophets 
through angels, but was not otherwise known. 
But when the Lord came, He was "the brightness 
of his glory, and the express image of his person. ,, 

What then could be given to Moses? Only to 



160 LIFE ETERNAL. 



see a bright cloud, the presence of angels partly- 
visible, and to hear a voice proclaiming the char- 
acter of God in immortal words. Standing, over- 
come with awe, in a cleft of the rock on the sum- 
mit of the mountain, Moses saw, passing on, a ra- 
diance from which came a voice proclaiming, " The 
Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long- 
suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 
keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity 
and transgression and sin, and that will by no 
means clear the guilty ; visiting the iniquity of the 
fathers upon the children and upon the children's 
children, unto the third and fourth generation/' 

Completely satisfied, at least for the time, with 
this manifestation of a glory not earthly, Moses 
made haste, and bowed his head towards the earth, 
and worshipped, and said, " If now I have found 
grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray 
thee, go among us ; for it is a stiffnecked people ; 
and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us 
for thine inheritance." 

Standing there in spirit with Moses, the Chris- 



IN AFFLICTION. j 6 1 

tian feels gratitude for the mercy which was 
granted the Israelite in giving him some idea of 
the Divine presence and glory, although the time 
for a full revelation of the Divine was still far dis- 
tant ; and, with Moses, he is led to recall his ini- 
quities and sins, and to pray that, in spite of his 
manifest failings, he may be taken for God's inher- 
itance, and may have some share in those rich 
blessings which "he hath prepared for him that 
waiteth for him." 

One particular lesson may however be over- 
looked, if it be not mentioned while all look with 
close sympathy upon this scene, imagining the 
rocks of Sinai about them and the music of the 
movement of the angelic host. 

This lesson is one for which every one has use 
every day, and without some knowledge of which 
very much of life is dark. Every one in a sense is 
in a cleft of the rock, every one sees the Lord after 
He has passed by. 

When one reads in the biography of Swedenborg 
that, in later life, he realized that he had been led 



1 62 LIFE ETERNAL, 



all the way by the Lord, so that the duties and 
trials of his life had been a preparation for the sub- 
lime privileges which fell to him, one does not 
think of this as necessarily an exceptional exper- 
ience, but thinks of it as a common expression with 
old people who are good. They look back as one 
looks from a summit upon the path by which he 
ascended, and says, now I see all the way: that 
place where the climb was so steep, I see how 
much distance it saved ; and that place where the 
trees were so thick, I see that it was the best place 
to pass, for on either hand the thicket was impen- 
etrable ; and that place where I thought ground 
lost, it was a bit of descent but it brought me round 
to that passable way when otherwise I could have 
gone no farther. 

It is this lesson of the past which Mrs. Brown- 
ing draws from when she says, — 



" O dreary life, we cry, O dreary life ! 

And still the generations of the birds 

Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds. 

Serenely live while we are keeping strife 









IN AFFLICTION. 1 65 



With heaven's true purpose in us, as a knife 
Against which we may struggle. Ocean girds 
Unslackened the dry land : savannah swards 
Unweary sweep ; hills watch, unworn and rife, 
Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest trees, 
To show above the unwasted stars that pass 
In their old glory. O thou God of old ! 
Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these, 
But so much patience as a blade of grass 
Grows by, contented, through the heat and cold." 

If this be the lesson of life looked back upon, 
note with Moses that men cannot see the Divine 
Providence so well in its face. The future of the 
Divine plan in its near relation with any one is a 
book he has not read. Who, in his childhood, 
pondering why he was of this family and not of 
another, why his people went to one church and not 
to another, why this friend came often to the house, 
why the little duties, which are a full charge for 
children's strength, were imposed when he would 
rather play, why he had a certain teacher, — what 
child, pondering these things, can see more than 
that the good Father of all will sometime show 



1 64 LIFE ETERNAL. 



him? And what parent can tell him more than 
that he will see in time ? " What I do thou know- 
est not now, but thou shalt know hereafter," is the 
law of Providence. The Lord foresees, men do 
not. He covers them with the hand of His care 
till He has passed by. 

The same thoughts come often to the minds 
of grown people. Why am I sick ? cries one, 
brought to a pause in full career of usefulness, and 
having many plans for the future. Why am I 
sick, and so suddenly checked in all my work? 
Man cannot answer ; the future must answer, and 
will answer, and will proclaim this Lord, whose 
hand now seems heavy, to be a Lord " merciful 
and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in good- 
ness and truth." 

Why, laments another, am I unfortunate while 
others prosper ? What good can come of it ? what 
mercy can be in it? He demands to know; he 
will know hereafter if he retains a teachable spirit, 
but he cannot so well see now. 

In the affairs of communities and nations come 



IN AFFLICTION. 



165 



these times of being in the cleft of the rock. 
What means it ? all were asking, when war came 
upon them. Every one asked his neighbor, and 
had answer that it meant pain, — pain in desolate 
homes, pain on bloody fields. What else it meant 
no man knew. God knew. In time men learned 
that the war had lessons of which they had not 
dreamed. Whirlwind, earthquake, and fire passed 
by before the nation smitten, and then a still, small 
voice said, "The Lord visiting the iniquity of the 
fathers upon the children and upon the children's 
children unto the third and fourth generation. " 

Times of trial, private, local, national, are not 
passed, and this lesson, therefore, all greatly need 
to remember. Fire comes, pestilence comes ; and 
some doubt the mercy of God. By-and-by they 
see the meaning, and know what at first they could 
not know. 

This is no general assertion, to be received only 
on faith. If any one doubts that he will ever look 
back upon his life, he does it against all fact and 
reason. The elders who so placidly spend their 



1 66 LIFE ETERNAL 

remaining days, are their minds idle? No. Are 
they fully concerned with present duties? No. 
They are pondering the past. Every day brings 
its reminiscences, giving much of happiness and 
little of pain ; for memory has a healing process 
like a tree, and will not always show its wounds, if 
men give it help to heal them. 

Some may pass suddenly into the other life, but 
it will not then be too late to look back. On the 
contrary they will then plainly find that the books 
of their lives speak of every word and deed,, and 
that every day of wind, and storm, and sun are 
marked therein forever. 

The failure now, or especially in old age, to 
recall what one wants to remember, is not a sign 
that memory is dying, but that the power of using 
it, as of using the hands, is lessened. The book is 
written in imperishable letters, and will reveal some 
day what has been forgotten now, and the mercy of 
the Father, who comforted and who disciplined, 
will gleam forth. 

Why one knew this friend, why he had this 



IN AFFLICTION, 167 

burden, why he was led to work in this employ- 
ment, why he had these gifts, and these denials of 
what he sought for, will all be plain. He need not 
remember the date, the spot, the raiment, the 
weather. The memory of these will pass; but the 
thought, the deed, the effect for good or ill, these 
remain written in light. 

" Music, when soft voices die, 
Vibrates in the memory ; 
Odors, when sweet violets sicken, 
Live within the sense they quicken." 

And the lesson of it all is that though the' 
Divine One had not in Israel's day made Himself 
visible to men, and though He did not show 
Himself to Moses, He did reveal His Providence 
and the way in which it deals with all. He passed 
by, He spake, He comforted, He vindicated His 
mercy. 

God is now to be seen. With the inward eye, 
if any are near Him in spirit, they can see the 
risen Lord. His face, all radiant as upon the 
Mountain of Transfiguration, reveals infinite love 



r 68 LIFE ETERNAL. 



and wisdom. None can ask for more than the ful- 
filment, now possible, of the promise, "They shall 
see His face, and His name shall be in their fore- 
heads ; " and if sometimes there is fear that He 
has forgotten, let there be faith that His children 
are safely covered by the shadow of His hand, and 
that in due time they will hear the voice, and see 
the purpose of "the Lord merciful and gracious." 



AFTER AFFLICTION. 

"A little while \ and ye shall not see me; and again a 
little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the 
Father" — John xiv. 16. 

CO often as death comes, it is common to com- 
bine with the act of burial a religious service. 
With reading from the Scriptures, remarks to 
mourning friends and prayer to the Father of 
Eternity, those who are bereaved are in some 
measure prepared to go forth, as becomes Chris- 
tians, and to commit the body to the earth, while 
the thoughts are lifted to the higher world. This 
done, the most difficult task is still to be performed, 
and it is one for which the religious services may 
not fully have prepared one. 

Those who have experienced this difficulty will 
not need to be told what it is. They will remem- 
ber that the moment of their greatest suffering was 



I70 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



when they returned to the home from which so 
much had been taken. A room about which their 
thoughts had gathered for months and perhaps 
years, towards which their careful steps had crept 
day after day to bear some offering of love to the 
sufferer, and in which the tenderest words had 
been whispered, is now x mpty. A care, deemed 
most precious and recently absorbing all their at- 
tention, is over forever. Suddenly, they feel an 
affliction more difficult to bear than all the rest, — 
the loss of the presence of the loved one. 

While the body remained in their keeping, they 
could watch over it; even during the services, 
they still had its presence ; but now this is gone, 
and they must learn to do without this object of 
love. 

To those who have experienced this great trial, 
it does not seem strange that the Egyptians em- 
balmed their dead and wrapped them in linen, 
placing by them rolls of papyrus telling of their 
happy future, and encasing the bodies in sealed 
wooden coverings painted with beautiful scenes of 



AFTER AFFLICTION. Y y t 



bliss, and then laying them away in sepulchres of * 
rock, where they would remain untouched by de- 
cay for thousands of years. 

Nor does it seem strange that the people of Pal- 
estine should go day after day for weeks to the 
grave to lament. Nor need it seem strange that, 
in Christian land, the mourner finds solace in going 
often to the grave, in expending much money to 
beautify the place with marble, and in decreeing 
by his last Will that the place shall be kept with 
everlasting care. 

Nevertheless, do as much of this as they may, 
tend never so carefully the flowers that surround 
the grave, and preserve with the most anxious care 
every relic, there is still something wanting, and. 
unless men can have it, their sorrow goes unsatis- 
fied. 

For no Christian will seek the remedy of his sor- 
row in forgetfulness, in turning away to unworthy 
pleasures, or to companionships which put out of 
mind his precious and sacred friends gone before. 
This cannot be done. What is then the remedy, 



172 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



if such there be? Many have not found it, and 
have still a void in their hearts. What is that 
which, receiving, the bereaved can go with no 
dread to the vacant room ; which may not dimin- 
ish their desire to visit the grave, but will relieve 
those visits of their agonies of longing ? 

It is the sweet sense of life continued, of friend- 
ship unbroken, of the temporary loss made good 
by the permanent gain of a spiritual companion- 
ship. 

There was one who had been out with his dead, 
and had returned uncomforted to sit by the vacant 
couch where he so long had watched. But as he 
sat, he seemed to catch the words, 

" * I am here.' 
They fell and died upon my ear, 
As dew dies on the atmosphere. 
Here ? Thou art here, Love ? ■ I am here.' 
The echo died upon my ear : 
I looked around me — everywhere ; 
But ah ! there was no mortal there ! 
The moonlight was upon the mart, 
And awe and wonder in my heart ! 



AFTER AFFLICTION. 



173 



I saw no form — I only felt 
Heaven's peace upon me as I knelt ; 
And knew a soul beatified 
Was at that moment by my side ! 
And there was silence in my ear, 
And silence in the atmosphere ! " 

This is something far removed from that appeal 
to so-called spiritual manifestations with which 
some have sought to fill the mournful heart with 
peace. It is all unsought. It seeks no circle of 
the credulous for their assistance. It comes in si- 
lence, and as uncontrolled by man as the summer 
breeze ; and to make its coming possible, one 
must enter into the closet in a spirit of prayerful 
submission to the Divine Will, or read with open 
heart the pages of the Holy Word. 

Of this sense of glorified presence of the loved 
ones, no one need speak to those who have felt it, 
and it might almost be said, he cannot speak to 
those who have felt it not ; but from the Lord's 
example something can be learned about it. 

When the Lord said "a little while, and ye shall 
not see me ; and again a little while, and ye shall 



i74 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



see me," He spoke of His death. The disciples 
did not understand, because they were not looking 
for anything but His worldly triumph ; and, when 
they did understand, sorrow filled their hearts. 

But the Lord saw it very differently. He knew 
that He was about to die, and to die by torture; 
but He saw the event very much as men see when 
they stand just without an open door, and look into 
an inviting room. He could not see death, the 
door, without seeing beyond it. He could not 
think of the separation save as being very brief. 
To Him the new presence after the death was more 
desirable than the presence before the death, and 
therefore He felt that they should rejoice when 
He told them that the death was near. He said, 
"Do ye enquire among yourselves of that I said, 
a little while, and ye shall see me ; and again a 
little while, and ye shall not see me ; and because 
I go unto the Father ? Verily, verily, I say unto 
you, that ye shall weep and lament, but the world 
shall rejoice ; and ye shall be sorrowful, but your 
sorrow shall be turned into joy." 



AFTER AFFLICTION. I7 g 



And then He told them of the painfullness of 
birth-scenes, but reminded them of the rejoicing 
in which the anguish was forgotten. "Ye now 
therefore have sorrow. But I will see you again, 
and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man 
taketh from you.'' 

With the Lord, death was triumph. He had 
dwelt in an earthly nature for a purpose, and had 
accomplished it. The temptations which had been 
met in order to secure man's redemption from evil 
had been overcome, till there remained only the 
last and most direful. By means of this He would 
put aside the earthly, would completely subjugate 
evil, and would firmly reestablish the kingdom of 
God, Himself being the chief corner-stone, and 
would be one with the Father as the body is one 
with the soul. 

Therefore He would die. Therefore would the 
apparent triumph of His foes be permitted, since 
thus captivity would be led captive, and death be 
swallowed up in victory. 

So it proved. The disciples, driven to flight, 



176 LIFE ETERNAL. 

did not even have the privilege of burying their 
dead Master, but hid themselves in fear. All 
know what followed, — His appearance to Mary, to 
the two going out to Emmaus, to the eleven gath- 
ered in a closed room, and several times more till 
all sense of loneliness had passed away from them. 
They did not see Him continuously, they knew 
that He was no longer as they, but might make 
Himself visible when and where He would, and 
then vanish again from sight. By their phrase "in 
the spirit," which they used, they expressed the 
truth that they saw Him after His resurrection 
only when His mercy opened their spiritual eyes. 
But they saw Him as He promised, and their joy 
no man could take from them. It sustained them 
in the most agonizing tortures, and was handed 
down to those who followed. In what magnificent 
words Paul says, "For I am persuaded that neither 
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall 
be able to separate us from the love of God, which 



AFTER AFFLICTION. 



177 



is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom. viii. 38, 

39.) 

It is important to call attention to the fact that, 
after His resurrection, our Lord was not seen by 
His foes, but only by those who loved Him. " Yet 
a little while, He said, and the world seeth me no 
more, but ye see me." The law now was the law 
of heaven. Those who were spiritually near, and 
who loved the light, saw Him. Those who were 
removed in spirit, and who hated Him, saw Him 
not. It is so in heaven, that they see Him : it is 
so in hell, that they hide themselves in the caves 
of the mountains. The angel says "I will set the 
Lord always before me ; " but the evil spirit, if be- 
fore he deliberately cried, " Away with Him, cru- 
cify Him," must now say to the rocks, "Fall on 
us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth 
on the throne." 

The apparent exception of the manifestation to 
Saul of Tarsus only emphasizes the truth. The 
Lord did it in mercy. Saul perceived Him, and 
did not rejoice, but fell fainting, yet his mind was 



1 78 LIFE ETERNAL. 



conquered and he became an apostle. Had not 
the Lord foreseen this, He would not have shown 
Himself to him. 

This truth as to the Lord applies to mortals and 
to their bereavements. While the Lord's powers 
and victory transcended those of men, there is the 
closest possible connection between His experi- 
ence and theirs. It is only that He went infinitely 
further in all His experiences. 

When the last, slow breath is drawn, and the 
last answering outbreathing is heard, he who has 
been sick is asleep. Indeed he had already slept, 
and already perhaps had murmured in his sleep of 
those who in the other life awaited him. From 
this sleep his body never awakes. It smiles from 
the peace of the spirit which has not yet wholly 
departed, and by and by loses that smile and all 
appearance of life forever. A photograph taken 
in health becomes more full of naturalness than 
the dead face after the due time has passed. 

Meantime, where is the friend ? Men make a 
sad mistake if they think he has gone away, and 






AFTER AFFLICTION. 



179 



look up to the stars and think he is there. He is 
gradually withdrawn from the body, but is not 
withdrawn from those he loves. He goes to the 
Heavenly Father, men say; very well, but the 
Heavenly Father is at hand. He goes to the 
loved ones gone before ; very well, but they are 
at hand. The Lord had gone to the Father, yet 
He was by the disciples when they went to Em- 
maus, and by them when they sat in Jerusalem, 
and by them when they fished on Galilee. " I 
am with you always," said He. Again, let the 
promise be remembered, "The tabernacle of God 
is with men, and he will dwell with them, and 
they shall be his people, and God Himself shall be 
with them, and be their God." 

When John in Patmos saw the great multitude 
which no man could number, did he go? or did 
they come ? No, as soon as he was in the spirit, 
he beheld them. 

The spiritual world is the soul of this world, 
and is within it as the soul is in the body. De- 
ceased friends do not go into the next room, they 



180 LIFE ETERNAL. 



are nearer than the next room ; and just as near, 
whether the bereaved remain where they are or 
remove a thousand miles. They are near when 
the ways in which they led are followed, and the 
only distance which can intervene is that which is 
caused when those still in this life turn away and 
lower themselves to ways which are opposed to 
theirs. Then those on earth depart, and not the 
angelic ones. Then men may lose the sense of 
their presence, but this is in obedience to the law, 
" The world seeth me no more, hut ye see me." 

Of course they do not stand before the bodily 
sight, nor speak to the bodily ears, but they are 
present in all that is essential, and they know the 
hearts they love and dwell by them, if they are 
not driven away by worldliness. When the Lord 
said to the disciples and to all men, that if they 
kept His commandments, He would come to them 
and make His abode with them, He spake of Him- 
self, but He uttered the law which governs all spir- 
itual companionship. 

If this fact can be understood beforehand, much 



AFTER AFFLICTION. 



itfl 



will be done to relieve the loneliness of affliction. 
As men trust God in times of peace in order to lay 
by a store of trustfulness for times of danger; as 
they study His Holy Word not only that it may 
be a light to their ways, but may rise into remem- 
brance when temptations assail ; so would they do 
well to ponder this lesson, for it will surely be 
needed. 

Then, when sickness comes to a loved one, when 
the precious last days are over, when the final rites 
are performed, and the mourners return to the si- 
lent home, there will still be a comforting thought, 
something to sustain them as they take up life's 
duties, a conviction which will enable them calmly 
to restore the sacred room to its former uses ; — 
and this will be the thought of the near presence, 
close sympathy and continued watchfulness of the 
risen friend. 

Mention is often made of the contracting circle 
of near friends, and of the lessening number of the 
revered aged ; is it realized that the unseen, but 
not unfelt company of risen ones grows larger con- 



1 82 LIFE ETERNAL. 

tinually, and awaits in hope and peace the coming 
of those whom it will receive into everlasting hab- 
itations ? 

If men have any sense of this in their hearts, a 
season of unusual mortality will not depress so 
much as it will chasten. It will neither turn any 
to seek forgetfulness in unworthy ways, nor lead 
any in weariness to pass their remaining days, lost 
to all innocent pleasures and taking away happi- 
ness from others ; but it will make all less eager 
in life's struggle, less envious of the worldly suc- 
cessful, less inclined to find fault with bodily ail- 
ments, and less desirous to be promised a long 
earthly life. 

This cannot be gained, however, without an 
effort; and, in order to be led to make the effort, 
the Christian of the New Church must remember 
his responsibility. The Lord has seen fit to open 
His Holy Word to him so that he may do it to 
others. His conduct in this as in all respects is 
the proof of the worth of what he believes. If he 
can come peacefully to bury his dead, and if he 






AFTER AFFLICTION, ^3 

can return peacefully to his duties, not publicly 
saying much of those deceased, but not concealing 
his sense of their continued life, he will do much 
to lift from the community the gloom which the 
dark ages produced and hung about death Avoid- 
ing not only this gloom but the opposite extreme 
of hardheartedness, he shall know the meaning of 
the words/' A little while and ye shall not see me, 
and again a little while and ye shall see me, be- 
cause I go to the Father." "Your sorrow shall be 
turned into joy, and your joy no man taketh from 
you." 



